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Fish Balls

Fish balls made with fish, potatoes, egg, butter, milk, flour, and fried in salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the fish overnight in cold water.

  2. Press out the water from the fish.

  3. Boil the potatoes, then mash and mix with the fish, beaten egg, butter, and milk until light.

  4. Fry slices of salt pork in a pan.

Cook and serve

  1. Form the fish mixture into cakes, dust with flour, and fry in the hot pork fat.

  2. Fry until golden brown, watching carefully to avoid scorching.

  3. Serve on a warm platter with bits of butter and garnish with crispy pork.

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 + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their flavour and bulk.
Potatoes
Add starch and softness, helping the mixture bind and stay light when mashed.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown, watching carefully to avoid scorching. The cakes brown through Maillard browning, which develops flavour and colour. Too much heat browns the outside before the centre is cooked and can make the sugars and proteins on the surface burn bitter.

“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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