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Ham Balls

Ham balls are fried balls made from eggs, bread crumbs, and chopped boiled ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Ham Balls

Why it works: Bread and ham 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

Prepare

  1. Beat together the eggs and bread crumbs.

  2. Chop the boiled ham into small pieces.

  3. Mix the chopped ham with the egg and bread crumb mixture.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Fry the balls in a pan until they are a nice brown color.

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. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the eggs and add body to the balls.
Boiled ham
Provides the main flavor and substance of the balls.

The step that matters

Fry the balls until nicely browned. Browning happens through the Maillard reaction, which needs direct heat and a dry surface. Crowding the pan or overly wet balls steam instead, leaving them pale and soft.

“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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