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Good Codfish Balls

A savory codfish and potato ball fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Good Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over the codfish for bones and pound it in a pan with a potato masher.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil or steam the potatoes until done, then drain and mash them with the fish.

  2. Add the butter, pepper, and egg, and mix well.

  3. Form the mixture into balls or flattened shapes, dusting your hands with flour.

Fry

  1. Drop the balls into hot frying fat and fry 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.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 codfish
Provides the main savory flavor and the bulk of the mixture.
Potatoes
Adds starch and body, helping the mixture hold its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape while frying.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Drop the balls into hot frying fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the balls absorb oil and turn greasy and may fall apart. Hot fat quickly sets the outside and browns it.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, pepper, 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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