Name: Cheese Balls No. 1
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon French mustard; ½ lb. cream cheese; 2 tablespoons cream; pepper to taste; salt to taste; a little onion

Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Balls No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Grate or mash the cream cheese.
Add French mustard, cream, pepper, salt, and onion.

Shape and serve

Form the mixture into balls.
Serve on a bed of lettuce.
Optionally, roll the balls in ground nuts.

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.

Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Cream cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Cream cheese: Forms the creamy base that holds the balls together.
Cream: Adds moisture and softness to the cream cheese mixture.
French mustard: Adds a sharp, tangy flavour that balances the rich cheese.
Onion: Adds a savoury aroma and sharp flavour.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, cream, pepper, onion):

Chivefits better
Potatofits better
Spinachfits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, cream, pepper, onion. 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.