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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are small, fried balls made with eggs, grated cheese, pepper, salt, cracker crumbs, 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: Cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs very lightly.

  2. Add enough grated cheese to make the mixture cohesive, along with pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Roll the mixture into balls the size of a walnut.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the balls in egg and then in cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with 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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Eggs
Bind the cheese mixture and form the egg wash that helps crumbs stick.
Grated cheese
Provides the bulk and flavour; enough is needed so the mixture holds together.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns during frying.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and promotes browning of the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the crumb coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisp. Hot fat seals the crumbs quickly, and the cheese inside can leak out if the balls sit too long in the oil before the coating sets.

“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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