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Codfish Balls (One pound of salt codfish pare)
One pound of salt codfish; pare potatoes, and boil twenty minutes; then lay the fish (in large pieces) on top and boil until potatoes are done; remove all bones and mash fish and potatoes together while hot; butter size of small egg, pepper and salt to taste; last one egg well beaten or if you want them very white, use whites of two eggs instead; beat thoroughly with silver fork until the mixture is light and creamy; with a knife and spoon make into small cakes and slip into hot lard; fry two or three minutes, turning them often.
A standard New England breakfast dish, written for cooks who already knew what salt cod required before it went near a pot. Two things are missing from the text: the soaking, and any quantity of potato.
- Soak the fish firstThe recipe assumes it. Modern heavily salted cod needs 12 to 24 hours in cold water in the refrigerator, with the water changed three or four times, or the finished cakes will be inedibly salty. Lightly salted or "boneless salt cod" in a wooden box needs less, perhaps 4 to 6 hours; taste a sliver of the raw flesh to judge.
- How much potatoNone is given. A common proportion for this style of cake is roughly equal weight of raw peeled potato to soaked fish, about a pound, or two or three medium russets, though period recipes vary and many use rather more potato than fish. More potato gives a softer, blander cake; less makes it dense and strongly flavored.
- The fish goes on top for a reasonThe fish goes on top -- Laying the cod over the potatoes keeps it out of the hardest of the boil, and salt cod can turn stringy if it is allowed to churn in rapidly boiling water. Twenty minutes for the potatoes, then five to eight more with the fish above them, is about right.
- Mash while hotThis is the instruction that matters. Cold potato and cold cod will not bind and the mixture turns gluey when worked. Drain thoroughly, then mash at once so surface moisture steams off.
- Butter the size of a small eggRoughly 2 tablespoons, or 1 ounce. Egg-size butter measurements are not standardised in this period and are given variously by different writers, sometimes as much as 2 ounces.
- Silver forkA period habit, not a rule. Silver was preferred because iron and steel discolored egg and light-colored foods. Any fork or a wooden spoon does the same job now.
- FryingFat hot enough to brown the cakes quickly, around 365 to 375F if you use a thermometer. The original says hot lard and two or three minutes with frequent turning, which suggests a shallow bath rather than a full fryer. Slip the cakes in with a spoon as directed, since they are soft, and do not crowd the pan. Chilling the shaped cakes for half an hour makes them easier to handle.
- YieldAbout a dozen to sixteen small cakes, serving four at breakfast. Traditionally eaten with a baked bean, a slice of brown bread, or ketchup.
Salt cod balls were breakfast in New England for most of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, and their presence in a general household cookbook of the period says a good deal about the pantry it was written for: dried salt cod kept indefinitely without ice, cost little, and could be bought in wooden boxes at any grocer. The dish is a thrift dish that became a regional signature, closely tied to Boston, where cod cakes and baked beans on Sunday morning used up Saturday's cooking. The choice offered here between a whole egg and two whites is a genteel touch, aimed at producing a pale cake rather than a yellow one, and reflects a period preoccupation with the color of food on a breakfast plate.