Skip to main content
Main

Cheese Balls

Fried balls of grated cheese mixed with flour, salt, and spices, coated in egg yolk and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cheese Balls

Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, flour, salt, and paprika or cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the egg whites and stir until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into small balls.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll each ball in the beaten egg yolk, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the balls until golden brown.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,860 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Grated cheese
Provides the main flavour and, as it melts, helps bind the balls.
Egg whites
Add structure by setting when heated, holding the balls together.
All-purpose flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the cheese mixture hold its shape.
Egg yolk
Gives the cracker coating something to adhere to and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until golden brown. The coated balls need enough heat to brown the crumbs and set the egg before the cheese inside leaks out. Oil that is too cool lets the coating soak up fat and turn greasy, while overheating can scorch the outside before the centre is hot.

“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.

More cheese balls recipes

with Tomato Sauce 4Cottage 3Fried 3 See all 102 →

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes