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Fish Balls

Fish balls made from equal parts fish and potatoes, bound with egg and butter, rolled in flour, and fried in lard with salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine chopped fish and potatoes in equal amounts.

  2. Add the beaten egg and melted butter, mixing well.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls and roll them in flour.

  2. Fry the balls in lard with salt pork until nicely browned.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main flavour and body of the fish balls.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, helping the balls hold together and stay tender.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until nicely browned. Frying in hot fat browns the flour coating through the Maillard reaction, creating flavour and colour. Too low a heat lets the balls absorb grease and turn soggy before they brown.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, butter, flour, pork. 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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