Codfish Balls
Soak codfish cut in pieces about an hour in lukewarm water, remove skin and bones, pick to small pieces, and return to stove in cold water. As soon as it begins to boil, change the water, and bring to a boil again. Have ready potatoes boiled tender, well mashed, and seasoned with butter. Mix thoroughly with the potatoes half the quantity of codfish while both are still hot, form into flat, thick cakes or round balls, fry in hot lard or drippings, or dip in hot fat, like doughnuts. The addition of a beaten egg before making into balls renders them lighter. Cold potatoes may be used, by reheating, adding a little cream and butter, and mixing while hot.-Mrs. J. H. Shearer.
A straightforward salt-cod and potato cake, and the only tricky part is the salt cod itself, which behaves nothing like fresh fish.
- The hinge: desaltingAn hour in lukewarm water, then a boil, a change of water and a second boil, is the minimum, and it suits the hard-dried, heavily salted cod of the period. Taste a flake before you mix; if it is still aggressively salty, soak longer in cold water in the refrigerator, changing the water several times over 12 to 24 hours.
- Buying the fishModern salt cod comes in several grades. Boneless, skinless fillets in a plastic pack are usually lighter-cured and need much less soaking than the bone-in wooden-box style.
- Proportions"Half the quantity of codfish" reads as half as much flaked fish as mashed potato, which is a mild, potato-forward cake; roughly 1 lb potatoes to 8 oz picked cooked fish. Equal parts gives a much saltier, more assertive ball.
- Lard and drippingsEither works and both give good flavour; a neutral oil is the modern default. Frying temperature should be 360-375F. Below that the cakes drink fat and slump.
- Keep everything hotThe instruction to mix fish and potato "while both are still hot" is not decorative. Cold mashed potato mixed with cold fish makes a gluey, dense cake that cracks in the fat.
- The eggOne beaten egg per pound of mixture binds and lightens. Without it the balls hold together only if the potato is dry and floury; waxy potatoes plus no egg is how they disintegrate in the fryer.
- ShapingChill the shaped cakes 20 to 30 minutes before frying if the mixture is soft; a stiff, dry mash can go straight to the fat.
- YieldAbout 12 to 16 balls from a pound of potatoes and half a pound of fish, enough for four as a main course with a sharp sauce or eggs.
Salt cod was one of the great trade goods of the Atlantic world, dried on the New England and Newfoundland shores and shipped south and to the Caribbean. Preserved cod kept for long periods without ice and was cheap, so codfish balls turn up throughout nineteenth-century American cookery as a Friday dish, a breakfast dish, and above all as a way of using yesterday's mashed potato. The plain, briskly practical voice here is characteristic of the whole collection.