Name: Fish Balls a LA Norris
Ingredients: 1½ cups pickled fish, cut into small pieces; ¾ cup milk; ¾ tablespoon butter; 1½ tablespoons flour; 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon celery salt; a slight grating of nutmeg; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Balls a LA Norris

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine butter and flour, stirring until well blended.
Add milk and cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens and leaves the bottom and sides of the pan.

Shape and serve

Stir in the parsley, celery salt, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and fish, mixing well.
Form the mixture into balls without using flour.
Arrange the balls in the center of a dish garnished with a puree of peas and potatoes.
Garnish with additional parsley.

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.

Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 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

Pickled fish: Provides the main flavour and body of the fish balls.
Flour: Thickens the butter and milk into a binding white sauce that holds the balls together.
Butter: Enriches the sauce with fat and adds a rich, mellow flavour.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk into the sauce. The milk must be stirred constantly so the flour starch gelatinizes evenly and the sauce thickens smoothly without scorching or lumps. A well-thickened sauce is what binds the fish into balls that hold their shape.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, pepper):

Cinnamonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, flour, parsley, nutmeg, pepper. 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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Fish Balls a LA Norris