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Preserve

Fish Balls

Fried fish balls made from minced fish, crumbled roll, onion, milk, egg, parsley, suet, bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove the gills from the fish and mince it with the crumbled roll, onion, milk, egg, parsley, suet, bread crumbs, pepper, and salt.

  2. Soak the crumbled roll in milk and squeeze it dry.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Dip the balls in egg and then in bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling lard or dripping 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Silver fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the balls.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls hold their shape, and forms a coating for browning.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the mixture and form a crisp, browned outer coating.
Roll
Soaked in milk and squeezed dry, it adds moisture and softness to the mixture.
Suet
Adds fat, which keeps the balls tender and adds richness.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard or dripping. The fat must be hot enough to brown the egg and crumb coating quickly. If the fat is too cool, the balls absorb grease and turn soggy before the outside turns golden.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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