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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are small fried cheese spheres made with egg white, salt, mustard, pepper, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Whip the egg white until very stiff.

  2. Add a pinch of salt, dry mustard, and red pepper.

Shape and fry

  1. Mix in enough grated cheese to form little balls.

  2. Fry the balls in deep lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with any 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  4. Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped to stiff foam, it gives the cheese mixture lightness and helps the balls hold their shape.
Grated cheese
Provides the main flavour and body, and melts and browns during frying to form the crust.
Deep lard
Conducts heat around the balls, cooking them quickly and browning the outside.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg white until very stiff. Stiffly whipped egg white traps air, which gives the balls a light texture. If it is under-whipped, the mixture will be dense and may not hold its shape well in the hot fat.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, cheese. 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.

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