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Codfish Balls,
After removing all the bones from the fish (which has been previously soaked and boiled to pieces), pick into shreds, and then let it drain. To one pound of fish, allow one dozen Irish potatoes, boiled and mashed very fine; season with pepper, salt, and a teacup of sweet milk; break one egg; then mix all together, make into rolls and bake a light brown.
A salt-cod recipe written for cooks who kept a slab of dried fish in the pantry as a matter of course. The proportions are generous with potato and the method is baking rather than the deep frying most people now associate with codfish balls.
- The fish is salt cod"Soaked and boiled to pieces" means dried salt cod, not fresh. Soak it in several changes of cold water for 12 to 24 hours in the refrigerator, then simmer gently until it flakes; boiling hard toughens it. Taste the soaked fish before salting anything else.
- Irish potatoesNineteenth-century American usage distinguishing ordinary white potatoes from sweet potatoes. Any floury baking potato works; waxy ones make the mixture gluey.
- A dozen potatoes is a lotTwelve medium potatoes to one pound of fish is roughly a 4:1 ratio by weight, which gives a mild, very soft mixture. Most modern versions run closer to equal parts, and cutting the potatoes to three or four is reasonable if you want the cod to read clearly.
- TeacupA period teacup is smaller than the modern eight-ounce measuring cup; contemporary tables reckon it variously at about four to six fluid ounces. Add the milk gradually — the amount of moisture the potatoes have already absorbed varies.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives only "bake a light brown"; kitchen ranges of this period had no thermostat. A moderately hot oven, about 400F, on a greased or parchment-lined sheet until the tops are set and lightly coloured, 20 to 25 minutes, turning once if you want colour on both sides.
- Chill before shapingThe mixture is much easier to roll cold. Spread it out, refrigerate an hour, then form; warm mash slumps and the rolls flatten in the oven.
- One egg is the whole binderWith this much potato, a single egg is doing very little. If the mixture will not hold a shape, add a second egg rather than flour, which dulls the flavour.
- YieldA large batch — enough for six to eight as a main course, with an egg sauce or stewed tomatoes, both common period accompaniments.
Salt cod was the everyday protein of the American Northeast long before it was a nostalgia dish: dried on flakes in Massachusetts and Newfoundland, it kept for months without ice and travelled anywhere a barrel could go. Codfish balls belong to the thrift end of that trade, a way of stretching a pound of cured fish across a family table with potatoes, and they were classic Sunday-morning fare in New England, often eaten with baked beans and brown bread. What is slightly unusual here is the baking he balballs into deep fat — and the phrase "Irish potatoes," a Southern and mid-Atlantic habit of speech that suggests this particular version travelled south of the cod grounds before it reached print. "Sweet milk" simply means fresh milk, named to distinguish it from the soured or buttermilk that a nineteenth-century kitchen also had on hand.