Name: Cheese Balls
Ingredients: 1 Neuchatel cheese; 1 teaspoon grated onion; ½ teaspoon lemon juice; 3 tablespoons cream; salted peanuts, pounded fine; chopped parsley

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine Neuchatel cheese, grated onion, lemon juice, and cream.
Mix well until smooth.
Form the mixture into balls about 1 inch in diameter.
Roll the balls in the pounded salted peanuts mixed with chopped parsley.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peanuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,043 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,655 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,849 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, onion, lemon, cream, parsley):

Chickpeafits better
Pistachiofits better
Beansfits better
Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, onion, lemon, cream, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.