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Cheese Balls

Cheese balls are fried balls made from grated cheese, flour, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cheese Balls

Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the cheese, flour, and egg yolk together.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste.

  3. Whisk the egg white to a stiff froth and gently fold it into the mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a deep pan of frying fat.

  2. Drop the mixture by teaspoonfuls into the hot fat and fry until nicely browned.

  3. Drain well and serve in a pyramid shape on a folded napkin or dish paper.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cheddar cheese + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheddar cheese + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,016 recipes

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

  5. Cheddar cheese + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and egg 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

Cheese
Provides flavour and fat, and helps the balls brown and set as they fry.
Flour
Adds body so the mixture holds its shape in the hot fat.
Egg
Binds the mixture, and the whisked white adds lightness and helps the balls puff.

The step that matters

Folding in the whisked egg white. Fold gently so the foam is not knocked out. The air in the whisked white is what lightens the mixture, and overmixing deflates it, leaving dense cheese balls.

“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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