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Egg Balls I

Egg balls made from hard‑boiled yolks, cayenne pepper, salt, butter, and raw yolk, shaped and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Egg Balls I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the yolks through a sieve.

  2. Add cayenne, salt, and melted butter.

  3. Moisten with raw egg yolk until the mixture is easy to handle.

Shape and cook

  1. Shape into small balls and roll in flour.

  2. Sauté in butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve in Brown Soup Stock, Consommé, or Mock Turtle Soup.

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 egg yolks
Form the base of the mixture, giving a soft, rich, crumbly texture.
Raw egg yolk
Adds moisture and binding so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns during sautéing for flavor and color.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the balls keep their shape and brown evenly.

The step that matters

Moisten with raw egg yolk. Too little raw yolk leaves the mixture crumbly and hard to shape, while too much makes it sticky and soft. Add it gradually until the mixture just holds together.

“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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