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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are small fried balls made from bread crumbs, butter, cheese, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Bread and butter 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

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread or cracker crumbs, melted butter, and grated cheese.

  2. Beat the eggs and add enough to the mixture to form a paste.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the mixture in beaten egg, then roll in cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard using a wire basket until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread or cracker crumbs
Form the bulk of the ball and give it a crisp outer coating.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavor and helps bind the mixture together as it melts.
Eggs
Bind the crumbs and cheese into a paste and help the coating stick.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the balls brown evenly.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the balls absorb more oil and turn greasy before the crumb coating sets and browns. Holding the balls in a wire basket lets excess oil drain and keeps the coating crisp.

“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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