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Meat Balls

Meat balls are ground beef, eggs, green pepper, bread crumbs, onion, and tomato sauce baked in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meatballs

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the hamburger, eggs, green pepper, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper until well combined.

  3. Form the mixture into balls and place them in a baking dish.

  4. Pour a little hot water over the meatballs and bake for about 45 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. While the meatballs are baking, prepare the sauce: brown the onion in a small amount of shortening in a frying pan.

  2. Add the flour and tomatoes to the browned onion, cooking until thick. If too thick, add a little water.

  3. When the meatballs are almost done, pour the sauce over them and cook for a little longer.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hamburger
Provides the main protein and fat that form the body of the meatballs.
Eggs
Bind the meat mixture so the meatballs hold their shape while baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help keep the meatballs tender rather than dense.
Flour
Thickens the browned onion and tomato mixture into a sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and liquid that form the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the sauce near the end of baking. Pouring the sauce on only when the meatballs are almost done keeps the meat from overcooking and drying out, while the sauce warms through and blends its flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, tomato, bread, 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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