Name: Egg Balls— or Unda Ka Golalah
Ingredients: 4 hard-boiled eggs; 1 raw egg yolk; 2 teaspoons flour; 2 teaspoons chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; a pinch of black pepper or cayenne

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Egg Balls— or Unda Ka Golalah

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolk mixture

Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, then place them in cold water until completely cool.
Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and place them in a bowl.
Add the raw egg yolk, flour, parsley, salt, and pepper to the bowl. Mix the ingredients well until combined.

Shape and cook

Roll the mixture into small balls.
Boil the balls in water for a couple of minutes until cooked through.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

Egg and flour 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

Hard-boiled eggs: Provide the bulk of the mixture, with yolks forming a soft, crumbly base.
Raw egg yolk: Binds the crumbled yolks so the mixture holds together when rolled.
Flour: Absorbs moisture and firms the mixture so the balls keep their shape.

The step that matters

Mixing the yolks with the raw yolk and flour. The mixture must be smooth and evenly combined so it binds well. Lumps or too little binder can make the balls crumble when rolled or boiled, while raw egg yolk and flour set together with gentle heat to hold the shape.

Swap the parsley

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

Turmericfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, pepper. 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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Egg Balls— or Unda Ka Golalah