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Macaroni Balls

A fried ball made from cooked spaghetti, flour, butter, milk, cheese, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Cook spaghetti in boiling salted water, then drain.

  2. In a bowl, mix 2 cups of cooked spaghetti with flour, melted butter, and milk until stiff.

  3. Add salt, red pepper, and cheese, then cook until thick.

Shape and coat

  1. Let the mixture cool until you can form it into balls.

  2. Roll each ball in beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cooked spaghetti
Forms the bulk of each ball and gives it a chewy texture.
All-purpose flour
Absorbs liquid and thickens with heat, helping the mixture hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender interior.
Milk
Supplies moisture that combines with the flour into a stiff dough.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the mixture.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the cracker crumbs stick to each ball.

The step that matters

Cook until thick, then cool before shaping. Heating gelatinizes the flour starch and thickens the mixture so it holds together. If it stays too wet or is shaped while hot, the balls can soften or fall apart in the hot oil.

“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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