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Cheese Balls

Fried balls made from beaten egg whites, Parmesan cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Parmesan cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,322 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Flavor the egg whites with salt and cayenne.

  2. Beat them into a very stiff froth.

  3. Gently stir in the grated Parmesan cheese.

  4. Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of walnuts.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop the balls into boiling fat and fry for five minutes.

  2. Drain well and serve on a dish sprinkled with grated cheese.

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. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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 whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the balls their light, airy structure.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and a sharp cheese taste to the balls.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites into a very stiff froth. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks. If they are under-beaten, the foam collapses when the cheese is folded in, and the balls will fry up dense and flat instead of light.

“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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