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Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are fried cakes made from salted cod, mashed potatoes, butter, eggs, and fried in lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Wash the salt codfish in cold water.

  2. Place the codfish in water and scald it three times.

Make the mixture

  1. Finely pick the codfish and mix it with an equal amount of fresh hot mashed potatoes and a large piece of butter.

  2. Stir in three well-beaten eggs.

  3. Mould the mixture into cakes or balls.

Fry

  1. Fry the cakes or balls half covered in lard or butter in a pan.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Provides the main savoury fish flavour and the body of the mixture.
Mashed potatoes
Adds starch and moisture that bind the fish and keep the cakes tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the mixture and carries flavour.
Eggs
Set when cooked, binding the mixture so the cakes hold their shape.

The step that matters

Scalding the codfish three times. Salt cod is very salty and firm; repeated soaking and scalding draws out salt and softens the flesh. Too little scalding leaves the cakes overly salty and tough.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. 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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