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Fish Balls

Salt cod fish balls made with mashed potato, butter, egg, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince or shred the salt cod finely.

  2. Combine the cod with the mashed potato and drawn butter in a bowl.

  3. Add the beaten raw egg and mix lightly until well combined and soft.

Shape and chill

  1. Dust a clean surface with flour and drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto it.

  2. Roll each spoonful into a ball and place on a cold platter.

  3. Refrigerate overnight to firm up.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat enough lard or dripping in a deep frying pan to cover the fish balls.

  2. Test the oil with one ball to ensure it's hot enough.

  3. Fry the balls in batches until golden brown, then drain on a hot colander.

  4. Serve on a heated platter and garnish with thinly sliced lemon.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Salt cod
Provides the main savoury flavour and the flaky, fish-based bulk of the balls.
Mashed potato
Adds starch and bulk, giving the balls a soft, tender interior.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the interior from drying out.
Raw egg
Binds the mixture together so the balls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Refrigerate overnight to firm up. Chilling lets the starch and egg set, so the balls hold their shape. Skipping it can cause them to break apart or absorb too much oil during frying.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, lemon. 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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