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Cod Fish Balls

A fried ball made from cooked cod, mashed potatoes, egg, and milk, formed into croquettes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cod Fish Balls

Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Cod Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cooked cod fish finely and measure 1 cup.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped fish, mashed potatoes, egg, and enough milk to create a stiff batter.

Shape and fry

  1. Dust your hands with flour and shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Heat deep lard in a frying pan and fry the croquettes 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cod fish
Provides the main flavor and protein structure of the fish balls.
Mashed potatoes
Add body and softness, helping the mixture hold together as a moist batter.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the croquettes keep their shape while frying.
Milk
Loosens the mixture to a stiff batter that is moist enough to shape.

The step that matters

Frying the croquettes until golden brown. The mixture is soft and moist, so it needs enough hot fat to brown the outside and set the coating before the inside is overworked. Frying in fat that is too cool lets the croquettes absorb grease and break apart.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, milk, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, milk, flour. 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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