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Cracker Balls for Soup

Cracker balls are small dumplings made from cracker crumbs, egg, butter, salt, and nutmeg, boiled in soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,377 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cracker Balls for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the cold fat or butter, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg and enough cracker crumbs to form a dough that can be handled.

  3. Roll the dough into marble-sized balls.

Cook in soup

  1. Boil the balls in the soup for about 10 minutes.

  2. Ensure the mixture is not too stiff to keep the balls light and spongy.

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.

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. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the dough together and helps the balls set while they cook.
Cracker crumbs
Provide the bulk of the dough, which the egg and fat hold together.
Cold fat or butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough as it is creamed.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture not too stiff. Too much cracker crumb makes a dense, stiff dough that yields heavy balls. Enough beaten egg keeps the dough moist so the balls stay light and spongy as they cook.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. 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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