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Receipt for the Fondue

A fondue made by beating eggs with cheese and butter, then cooking over fire until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Gruyere cheese and cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 93 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Receipt for the Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Break and beat the eggs in a flat pan.

  2. Add the butter and grated or small pieces of cheese.

  3. Place the pan over a clear fire and stir with a wooden spoon until thick and soft.

  4. Season with a little or no salt, depending on the cheese's age, and add plenty of black pepper.

  5. Serve in a hot dish.

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. Gruyere cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Gruyere cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + gruyere cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken the mixture as they cook, giving the fondue its body.
Gruyere cheese
Provides the main flavour and melts into the eggs to give a smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring over the heat. Eggs can scramble if the heat is too high or they are left unstirred. Constant gentle stirring over a clear fire keeps the mixture smooth and thick as the eggs set.

“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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