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Ham Balls

Ham Balls are small fried balls made with cream, flour, ham, mustard, cayenne, eggs, breadcrumbs, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Ham Balls

Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ham mixture

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Whisk in the flour until thickened.

  3. Season with mustard and cayenne pepper.

  4. Stir in the finely chopped ham.

  5. Cool the mixture in the refrigerator.

Shape, coat and fry

  1. Mould the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten eggs.

  3. Coat each ball with bread crumbs.

  4. Fry the balls in hot lard until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Thickened with flour to form a soft, binding base for the ham.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a paste that holds the ham together.
Ham
Provides the main savoury flavour and bulk of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the bread crumbs adhere to each ball.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer layer that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture in the refrigerator. A thickened cream and ham mixture must be fully chilled before shaping, or it stays too soft to form balls and may collapse or spread in the hot lard.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, pepper, ham, egg, bread):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, pepper, ham, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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