Skip to main content
Baking

Codfish Balls

Codfish balls are made by soaking codfish, simmering, mixing with milk, butter, flour, eggs, and pepper, then cooking until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Codfish Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the codfish

  1. Soak the codfish in cold water for 1½ hours.

  2. Drain the codfish.

  3. Cover the fish with boiling water and simmer for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Drain the water and add 1½ pints of new milk and the butter.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix ½ pint of milk with 3 tablespoons of flour until smooth.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs and black pepper.

  4. When the milk mixture boils, stir in the flour mixture.

  5. Cook for 5 more minutes, stirring frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately in a warmed vegetable dish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Codfish
Forms the main body of the balls and provides the savoury flavour of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it becomes a smooth, cohesive binder.
Eggs
Set when heated, helping bind the mixture together.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the mixture as it thickens.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a softer texture and flavour.

The step that matters

When the milk mixture boils, stir in the flour mixture.. Flour needs to be added to hot liquid and stirred steadily so starch can gelatinise evenly; adding it cold or without stirring can leave lumps.

“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.

More codfish balls recipes

Salt 3 See all 201 →

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes