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Herring Balls

A dish of boiled herring mixed with mashed potatoes, cream, butter, and eggs, formed into balls, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

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

Herring Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Partly boil the bloaters or herrings.

  2. Remove the skin and bones.

Shape the balls

  1. Mix the fish meat with the mashed potatoes, butter, and enough cream to soften the mixture.

  2. Form the mixture into balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the balls in beaten egg.

  2. Roll the balls in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls in lard or butter 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Bloaters or red herrings
Provide the main fish flesh that forms the body of the balls.
Mashed potatoes
Add bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together without being dense.
Cream
Adds moisture so the fish and potato mixture stays soft and easy to shape.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the mixture.
Eggs
Form a binding coating that helps the bread crumbs adhere to the balls.
Bread crumbs
Create a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the coated balls. The coating must be set and the balls fried in enough hot fat to brown the crumbs. Low heat lets the balls absorb grease and turn soggy, while the fish and potato are already cooked, so the aim is colour and crispness.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, egg, bread. 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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