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Fish Balls

Fish balls are made from fish, potatoes, egg, butter, milk, and flour, then fried in salt pork fat.

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 ↓

Fish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the fish in cold water overnight, enough to cover it.

  2. In the morning, press out the water from the fish.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the potatoes, then mix them with the fish, beaten egg, butter, and milk until light and fluffy.

  2. Fry a slice of salt pork in a pan.

  3. Form the mixture into cakes with your hands and dust them with flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in the hot pork fat until they are a delicate brown, being careful not to scorch them.

  2. Serve on a warm platter with bits of butter and garnish with the crisp pork.

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

Potatoes
Add bulk and softness, giving the cakes a light, fluffy interior.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so the cakes hold their shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the mixture become light and fluffy.
Flour
Dusting helps the outside of the cakes brown in the pork fat.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes gently. The cakes need enough heat to brown, but too much heat scorches the flour-dusted outside before the inside is heated through. Moderate heat gives an even, delicate brown.

“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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