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Cheese Balls (If stale cheese is used)
If stale cheese is used in the preparation of cheese balls, a much better result is obtained than if fresh is used. To a half cupful of grated cheese, add a quarter of a cupful of bread crumbs, two eggs and a dash of cayenne pepper. For the crumbs, use stale bread and mix well with the cheese and the beaten yolks of the eggs. When thoroughly blended, add the whites, beaten to a stiff froth. If the balls, which should be the size of the yolk of a hard boiled egg, are too soft to handle, roll them in bread crumbs, fry in deep fat and serve hot with salad.
A simple fritter of cheese, crumbs and egg, fried and served alongside salad. The whole thing hinges on how dry the cheese is.
- "Stale cheese" is dry, aged cheeseNot spoiled cheese — the book means a hard piece that has dried out at the edges, which grates fine and holds together instead of weeping fat. A well-aged Cheddar, dry Jack or the hard end of a Parmesan-style cheese does the same job. Discard any actual mould on a soft or semi-soft cheese rather than using it here.
- Quantities and yieldHalf a cup of grated cheese is roughly 2 oz; a quarter cup of dry crumbs is about 1 oz. Two eggs is a lot of egg for that much solid matter, which is why the text warns the mixture may be too soft. Expect about a dozen balls the size of an egg yolk — two or three servings as a garnish.
- Fold the whites, do not stir themThe stiff whites are the only lift in the recipe. Cut them in with a spatula in two additions and stop while streaks are still faintly visible, or the balls fry dense.
- Fat temperatureThe original gives none. Deep fat for small fritters wants 365–375°F; below that they soak, above that the outside colours before the egg sets inside. Fry three or four at a time so the temperature holds.
- Handling a soft mixtureRather than rolling by hand, drop the mixture from two teaspoons straight into the fat, or chill it 20–30 minutes first. Rolling in extra crumbs, as the book suggests, also works and gives a firmer crust.
- CayenneA dash is best read as a pinch; an eighth of a teaspoon is about the modern equivalent. With this little cheese it registers clearly. A scrape of nutmeg or a little dry mustard would not be out of place in a cheese dish of this kind.
- ServingFry to order and serve within a few minutes; the puff collapses as they cool. The book directs only that they go out hot with salad; hot cheese dishes of this kind were often served as a savoury course toward the end of dinner.
Cheese balls of this kind belong to the late-Victorian and Edwardian savoury course — a small, sharp, hot dish served after the sweet or alongside salad. The recipe is essentially a cheese soufflé mixture stiffened with crumbs so it can be deep-fried, a technique cookbooks of the period applied to almost everything from rice to fish. Its real subject, though, may well be thrift: the insistence on stale cheese and stale bread can be read as reflecting a kitchen economy in which the dried ends of a cheese and the heel of a loaf were assets rather than waste, though the text does not say so itself. Aged cheese also happens to work better on the merits, having lost moisture and concentrated its flavour, so the frugal instruction and the good one coincide.