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Curry Balls

Curry balls are small balls made from bread crumbs, egg yolks, butter, and curry powder, then fried or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Curry 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 ↓

Curry Balls

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, combine the bread crumbs, hard-boiled egg yolks, and butter.

  2. Season the mixture generously with curry powder.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls.

  4. Fry or boil the balls as desired.

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

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

  3. Tea + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together383 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Tea + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provides the bulk and starchy body that holds the balls together.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Bind the crumbs and add richness and a fine, crumbly texture.
Butter
Adds fat for moisture and richness, helping the balls stay tender.

The step that matters

Forming the small balls. The crumbs must absorb enough fat and yolk to hold together as a cohesive mass. If the mixture is too dry it will crumble when shaped or fried, and if it is too wet it will stick to the hands and lose its shape.

“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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