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Cod-fish Balls

A savory dish of mashed potatoes mixed with salt cod, butter, eggs, and milk, formed into cakes and fried.

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 ↓

Cod-fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cod

  1. Soak the salt cod fish in cold water overnight.

  2. Boil the cod fish slowly until tender.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the Irish potatoes and mash them while warm.

  2. Mix the mashed potatoes with one third of the cod fish and two thirds of the mashed potatoes.

  3. Add the butter, eggs, and milk to the mixture and combine well.

Shape, fry and serve

  1. Shape the mixture into cakes about an inch thick.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot lard or pieces of salt pork until brown.

  3. Cut hard-boiled eggs in halves and place a piece in the center of each fish ball before serving.

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

Salt cod
Provides the main fish flavour and body of the fish balls.
Irish potatoes
Mashed starch that binds the mixture and gives the cakes a soft interior.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help hold the cakes in shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and flavour to the mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until brown. Frying in hot fat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction and seals in moisture; fat that is not hot enough lets the cakes absorb grease and fall apart.

“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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