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Cheese and Macaroni Balls

Cheese and macaroni balls are fried balls made from macaroni, cheese, butter, flour, milk, egg yolk, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cheese and Macaroni Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour.

  2. Add the milk and stir until it boils.

  3. Mix in the grated Parmesan cheese, chopped macaroni, and egg yolk.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Cook for 1-2 minutes.

  6. Transfer the mixture to a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small balls.

  2. Dip the balls in beaten egg.

  3. Coat the balls with breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the balls in hot oil until golden brown.

  5. Drain the fried balls on paper towels.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fried balls in a pyramid on lace paper.

  2. Garnish with fried 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.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Macaroni
Adds bulk and a chewy texture inside the balls.
Butter
Provides fat and richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a binding sauce that holds the balls together.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a creamy, cohesive base.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the mixture firm up as it cools.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is sticky and will not hold its shape or coat evenly. Cooling lets the starch-thickened sauce firm up so the balls keep their form through the egg, breadcrumb, and frying steps.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, parmesan cheese, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, parmesan cheese, egg. 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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