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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls made with dairy cheese, Parmesan, flour, egg whites, and spices, then fried and served with salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated dairy cheese, Parmesan cheese, flour, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well mixed.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small balls and roll them in fine bread crumbs.

  2. Heat oil in a deep pan and fry the cheese balls until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with a lettuce salad and French dressing.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they trap air and help the balls puff and set lightly when fried.
Dairy cheese
Provides the main body, richness and flavor of the balls.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and gives the mixture enough body to hold its shape.
Parmesan cheese
Adds a sharper, saltier cheese flavor to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives lightness. Stirring or overmixing knocks out that air, so the balls can turn dense and heavy when fried.

“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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