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Fresh Halibut Fish Balls

A fried ball made from boiled halibut, mashed potatoes, butter, sugar, salt, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Fresh Halibut Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the boiled halibut into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine halibut, mashed potatoes, butter, powdered sugar, salt, and eggs.

  3. Mix well and form into round flat balls.

  4. If it's cold, let them sit overnight; if it's warm, prepare them in the morning.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a kettle until boiling.

  2. Fry the balls in batches until they are a soft light brown.

  3. Ensure the lard is boiling to prevent soaking; if too hot, they will burn.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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

Halibut
Provides the main body and flavor of the fish balls.
Mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and a soft, tender texture that holds the balls together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the lard boiling before frying. Lard that is not hot enough lets the balls absorb grease and turn soggy, while lard that is too hot browns the outside before the inside is heated through and can burn them.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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