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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are fried balls made from soft cheese, egg, salt, cayenne, and bread crumbs.

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 bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the cheese with the beaten egg.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, and enough bread crumbs to form a stiff paste.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls the size of English walnuts.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each ball in beaten egg.

  2. Roll each ball in dry bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with lettuce or cress 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 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

Soft american cheese
Provides the main body and rich flavor of the balls, and melts to a creamy interior when fried.
Egg
Binds the cheese into a cohesive mixture and helps the crumb coating stick.
Stale bread crumbs
Stiffen the cheese into a shapeable paste and form a crisp outer coating.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it browns, and the soft cheese inside may leak out. Hot oil sets and browns the crumb crust quickly, keeping the filling inside.

“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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