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Curd Cheesecakes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Curd Cheesecakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine rennet and milk in a bowl and let it sit by a warm fire until it separates into curds and whey.

  2. Cut the curds with a spoon five or six times to help separate them from the whey.

  3. Drain the curds in a fine sieve, turning occasionally until dry.

  4. Rub the curds through the sieve into a bowl.

  5. Melt the butter slightly and mix it with the curds.

  6. Add the eggs and beat the mixture lightly for 1-2 minutes.

  7. Sweeten with sifted lump sugar to taste, then add currants, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

  8. Line a tourte pan with puff pastry and create a rim about ½ inch thick.

  9. Fill the center with the curd mixture and decorate with slices of candied peel or citron.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, lemon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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