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Fish Fritters

A fried batter of shredded salt cod, milk, eggs, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the salt codfish and shred it finely.

  2. Place the fish in a saucepan with plenty of cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Turn off the heat, drain the water, and add more cold water; let it simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the fish and let it cool until dry.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, salt, baking powder, and enough flour to create a thick batter.

  2. Fold in the cooled fish mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a frying pan and drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot oil.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides, then drain on paper towels.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 flavour and the flaky fish texture throughout the fritters.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during frying to hold the fritters together.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the fritters their body and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter and helps it brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Let the fish cool until dry before folding it in. Wet fish releases water into the batter, thinning it and making the fritters soggy or greasy. Drying the fish keeps the batter thick enough to hold its shape and fry crisp.

“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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