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Codfish Balls

A dish of mashed potatoes mixed with shredded salt codfish, butter, and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  2. Cover the codfish with boiling water and let it cool enough to handle.

  3. Pick the fish into shreds and drain off the water.

Mix and fry

  1. Mix the fish, potatoes, butter, and egg together, and beat the mixture well.

  2. Fry heaping tablespoonfuls in deep fat, or shape into balls or cylinders and fry in deep fat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Provides the main savoury flavour and firm, flaky body of the fritter.
Potatoes
Adds starch and bulk, giving the mixture a soft, cohesive texture.
Egg
Binds the fish and potato mixture so it holds its shape while frying.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mixture and adding flavour.

The step that matters

Drain the codfish after soaking. Salt cod that is soaked and then left wet releases extra water into the mixture. Excess moisture makes the mix loose and can cause it to spatter or fall apart in hot fat, so draining it well helps the fritters hold together.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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