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Codfish Balls

A fried ball made from boiled codfish and potatoes, moistened with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the boiled codfish and mash the boiled potatoes.

  2. Mix the codfish and potatoes together.

  3. Moisten the mixture with milk until it holds together.

  4. Shape the mixture into balls the size of an egg and flatten them.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter or lard in a pan and fry the balls until they are a nice brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 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

Boiled codfish
Provides the main flavour and the flaked body of the balls.
Boiled potatoes
Binds the fish and adds softness and bulk to the mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture can be shaped and holds together.
Butter or lard
Conducts heat in the pan and helps the outside brown.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with milk until it holds together. Too little milk leaves the balls crumbly and likely to fall apart when shaped and fried, while too much makes them soft and greasy. Adding it gradually lets you reach a firm, shapeable mixture.

“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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