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Egg Balls

Egg Balls are boiled eggs mashed with yolks, salt, pepper, and egg white, formed into walnut-sized balls, rolled in flour, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes.

  2. Drop them into cold water and cool.

  3. Remove the yolks and pound them into a paste.

  4. Beat the yolks with salt, pepper, and the egg white.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls the size of walnuts.

  2. Roll the balls in flour.

  3. Fry in butter or chicken fat until brown, being careful not to burn.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks form the body of the balls, and their fat and protein bind them into a firm paste.
Egg white
Adds moisture and protein that help the yolk mixture hold together when shaped.
Flour
Forms a thin dry coating on the balls that helps them brown evenly in the fat.
Butter or chicken fat
Conducts heat to the outside of the balls, driving browning and adding rich flavor.

The step that matters

Fry until brown, not burnt. Flour and milk solids brown quickly in hot fat, so the balls can scorch on the outside before the centre warms through. Moderate heat and close watching give an even golden crust.

“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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