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Cod Fish Balls

A dish of cod fish mixed with mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, and seasonings, formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cod Fish Balls

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cod Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the cod fish in lukewarm water overnight.

  2. Change the water in the morning and wash off all the salt.

  3. Cut the fish into pieces and boil for 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the water and boil again in fresh boiling water for 20 minutes.

  5. Drain all the water and let the fish cool, then pick it into fine pieces, removing skin and bones.

Form the balls

  1. Mix the fish with the mashed potatoes, butter, salt, pepper, and beaten eggs.

  2. Add milk if necessary to form a dough.

  3. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into biscuits.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the biscuits in hot butter or drippings until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cod fish
Provides the main body and flavor of the fritters, flaked into the mixture.
Mashed potatoes
Adds bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together while frying.
Eggs
Bind the fish and potato mixture so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the mixture and helps browning in the frying fat.

The step that matters

Soak and boil the cod thoroughly. Salted cod must be desalted by soaking and changing the water, then boiled twice. Insufficient soaking leaves the fish too salty, and it affects the final seasoning of the mixture.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, pepper, egg, milk. 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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