Why it works: Cheese and sherry work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓
Stilton Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
If using, insert a small piece of decayed Cheshire into the top of the Stilton cheese.
Let the cheese ripen for 3 weeks to 1 month.
For added flavor, scoop out a piece from the top and pour in port, sherry, Madeira, or old ale.
Allow the cheese to absorb the liquid for 2 to 3 weeks.
To serve, cut off the top of the cheese to create a lid and wrap it with a napkin or white paper, frilled at the top.
Replace the lid when the cheese is taken from the table.
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.
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Cheese + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together143 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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