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Dessert

Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are small fried balls made with egg whites, Parmesan cheese, salt, cayenne pepper, and fried in boiling fat.

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

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites with salt and cayenne until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold in the grated Parmesan cheese.

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

Fry and serve

  1. Drop the balls into boiling fat and fry for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove and drain on paper, then serve sprinkled with more 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 stiff peaks, they form a light foam that gives the balls an airy, puffed structure.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and firms up as it heats, helping the balls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Folding in the cheese. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped egg whites intact. Stirring or beating hard would deflate the foam, leaving dense, flat balls that do not puff when fried.

“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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