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Codfish Balls

A fried mixture of shredded codfish, mashed potatoes, butter, and egg yolks formed into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Soak the codfish in water overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the water and finely shred the codfish.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil and mash twice the amount of potatoes compared to codfish.

  2. Add a large piece of butter and the beaten yolks of 2 eggs to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Mix in the shredded codfish and beat the mixture until light.

Fry

  1. Form the mixture into cakes and fry 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. 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

Codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and the flaky texture of the cakes.
Potatoes
Bulk and starch that bind the mixture and give the cakes a soft interior.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, which carries flavor and helps the cakes brown.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it together while it sets.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until light. Beating the mashed potato, butter, yolk and fish together incorporates air and evens out the texture, so the cakes hold their shape and fry lightly rather than turning dense.

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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