Name: Cracker Balls for Soup
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons cracker crumbs; 1 egg; 2 tablespoons butter or fat; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon milk or soup; ⅛ teaspoon salt; nutmeg to taste; ginger to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cracker Balls for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the balls

In a bowl, stir the butter with the egg.
Add the chopped parsley, milk, salt, and spices.
Mix in enough cracker crumbs to form small balls.

Serve

Drop the balls into boiling soup 10 minutes before serving.

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.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg: Binds the mixture so the crumbs hold together as balls.
Cracker crumbs: Form the body of the balls and absorb the butter and egg.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, keeping the balls tender.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, parsley, milk, nutmeg, pepper):

Cinnamonfits better
Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, parsley, milk, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.