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Carrot Balls

Fried balls made from boiled carrots mixed with butter, flour, milk, seasonings, egg, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrot Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carrot

  1. Scrape and boil the carrots in salted water until tender.

  2. Rub the carrots through a sieve or potato press and measure.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Mix in the flour, then add the milk and stir until smooth and thick.

  3. Add the prepared carrot, season with salt, pepper, onion juice, and parsley; cook for 2 minutes.

  4. Let the mixture cool and firm up.

Shape and fry

  1. Form into small balls, dip each in beaten egg, and roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main body and sweet flavour of the balls.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a stiff base that holds the balls together.
Milk
Combines with the flour to form a smooth, thick binding sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the thickened base.
Egg
Coats the balls so the bread crumbs adhere and set during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool and firm up before shaping. The thickened carrot mixture is soft while warm and will not hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch set so the balls keep their form through egg dipping and frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, butter, flour, milk, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, butter, flour, milk, pepper, parsley, 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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