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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are made from beaten egg whites and Parmesan cheese, fried in hot lard and served with salad.

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

Why it works: Egg and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,368 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add enough Parmesan cheese to create a thick batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard.

  2. Serve immediately with salad.

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

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

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 to give the batter its airy, light structure.
Parmesan cheese
Thickens the whipped whites into a batter and adds savory, salty flavor.
Lard
Heats to transfer heat quickly, cooking the outside of each ball until golden.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard. Whipped egg white foam is fragile and deflates easily, so the batter should go into hot fat promptly and gently. The hot fat sets the outside quickly, helping the balls hold their shape and keeping them from absorbing excess grease.

“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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