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Herring Balls

Herring Balls are fried balls made from boiled herring, mashed potatoes, butter, cream, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Herring Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Partly boil the bloaters or herrings, then remove the skin and bones.

Shape the balls

  1. Mix the fish meat with the mashed potatoes, butter, and cream until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into balls.

  3. Roll each ball in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls in lard or butter 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten egg helps the bread crumbs adhere and forms a golden coating when fried.
Mashed potatoes
Adds starch and moisture, helping the fish mixture bind and stay soft inside.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the filling and browns in the frying fat.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Rolling in egg and bread crumbs. The egg must coat the balls evenly so the crumbs stick. Gaps let the mixture break apart or absorb fat unevenly during frying.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, egg, bread. 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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