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Fish Balls

Fish Balls are made from cold fish, eggs, bacon, milk, breadcrumbs, butter, and seasonings, then fried or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Fry the bacon in 2 tablespoons of butter until pale.

  2. Add breadcrumbs, seasoning, milk, and egg yolks, then cook while stirring well.

  3. Incorporate the chopped fish and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Form and cook

  1. Let the mixture cool, then form into balls on a floured surface.

  2. Boil in salted water or fry in boiling fat until cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter sauce flavored with anchovy and lemon juice.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fish
Forms the body of the balls and gives them their main flavour.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during cooking to hold the balls together.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture before shaping. Cooking the breadcrumb and egg mixture while stirring thickens it and sets the egg. Letting it cool before forming keeps the balls firm enough to handle and stops them falling apart in the water or fat.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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