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Dessert

Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are made from grated cheese, butter, bread crumbs, cream, mustard, salt, pepper, and egg yolk, then fried or simmered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Grate the cheese and place it in a bowl with butter, bread crumbs, cream, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pound the mixture to a paste, then add the yolk of the hard-boiled egg and pound again.

  3. Test the mixture; if too dry, add a little raw egg to moisten.

Shape and cook

  1. Flour your hands and a board, then shape the mixture into balls the size of marbles.

  2. Set the balls aside to firm up.

  3. To cook, either fry them after coating in egg and crumbs or simmer in boiling stock for a few minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Provides the main flavour and fat, and sets firm as the mixture is shaped and cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the mixture bind smoothly into a paste.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the cream and help the mixture hold its shape.
Cream
Adds moisture so the cheese mixture becomes soft and easy to shape.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Enriches the mixture with fat and a firm, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Test the mixture before shaping. Cheese mixtures can turn dry or crumbly as they are pounded. Checking the texture and adding a little raw egg only if needed keeps the balls moist and able to hold together during cooking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, bread, cream, mustard, egg, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, bread, cream, mustard, egg, flour. 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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