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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are small fried balls made from grated cheese, egg whites, pepper, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated cheese, egg whites, and pepper.

  2. Add enough cracker crumbs to thicken the mixture.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan and fry the cheese balls until golden brown.

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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Grated cheese
Provides the main flavour and fat, and melts to give the balls a rich interior.
Egg whites
Bind the mixture and set when heated, giving the balls structure.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and thicken the mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Lard
Conducts heat in the frying step and browns the outside of the balls.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture before forming the balls. Cheese and egg whites are moist, so the cracker crumbs must be added until the mixture is firm enough to shape. A loose mixture spreads and breaks apart in the hot fat.

“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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