Skip to main content
Main

Fish Balls

A baked fish and potato mixture formed into balls, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the haddocks in a greased tin, cover with buttered paper, and bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the flesh from the bones and chop it finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them with the butter.

  2. Combine the mashed potatoes with the chopped fish.

  3. Beat the yolk of one egg with the milk and add it to the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands, shape the mixture into neat balls, and dip them in the beaten egg.

  2. Coat the balls in bread crumbs and fry in boiling fat until golden.

  3. Drain on kitchen paper and serve very hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Potatoes
Bind the mixture and give the balls a soft, moist interior.
Haddocks
Provide the main flesh and flavour of the fish balls.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and form a golden coating when dipped.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown outer crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potatoes.

The step that matters

Frying the coated balls in boiling fat until golden. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the balls absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy inside before the crust forms.

“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.

More fish balls recipes

Cod 40Salt 10Boston 6Cornmeal 3 See all 109 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes