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Cod Fish Balls

A fried ball made from shredded codfish, mashed potatoes, egg, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cod Fish Balls

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cod Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the shredded codfish, butter, mashed potatoes, and beaten egg.

  2. Save 1 teaspoon of the beaten egg and mix it with a little water.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into balls, then roll each ball in the egg mixture.

  2. Coat the balls in flour.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in hot oil until they are nice and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Shredded codfish
Provides the main flavor and the fish body of the balls.
Mashed potatoes
Bind the mixture and add moisture and softness inside the balls.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and forms a coating that helps browning.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps browning.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the egg layer stick and promotes browning when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the balls in hot oil until nice and brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the balls absorb oil and turn greasy, and the coating browns slowly. Hot oil sets the outside quickly, which keeps the inside moist and gives a crisp, golden crust.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour. 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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