Name: Cheese Balls
Ingredients: 1 large teaspoon rich American cheese; 1 English walnut, halved; 1 olive

Why it works: Walnut and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,087 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

1 large teaspoon rich American cheese
1 English walnut, halved
1 olive

Directions

Mold the cheese into a ball using your hands.
Press half of a walnut onto each side of the cheese ball.
Place the cheese ball and an olive beside the salad on the plate.

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.

Walnut + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,087 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,802 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Cheese + walnuttop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together410 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rich american cheese: Forms the body of the ball and provides its rich, creamy flavor.
English walnut: Adds a crunchy texture and nutty flavor to the outside of the cheese ball.