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Tomato and Cheese Swiss Fondue

A fondue made with tomato juice, garlic, Swiss or Gruyère cheese, cornstarch, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,979 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. Heat 1 ¾ cups tomato juice with garlic in the top of a double boiler until very hot.

  2. Place the pot over boiling water and remove the garlic.

  3. Add the cheese a small amount at a time, stirring constantly until melted.

  4. Combine cornstarch, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings with ¼ cup tomato juice; stir into the cheese mixture.

  5. Continue stirring until smooth; if the fondue becomes too thick, add more tomato juice.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + basiltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Basil + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Swiss cheese or gruyere cheese
Melts into the base to provide the main body, richness and flavor of the fondue.
Cornstarch
Thickens the melted cheese and helps keep it smooth and from separating.
Tomato juice
Provides the liquid that melts the cheese and sets the fondue's consistency and tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the cheese gradually. Adding cheese in small amounts while stirring constantly lets it melt evenly. Dumping it in at once can clump or cause the cheese to turn stringy or grainy as it overheats.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, garlic, swiss cheese, sauce, basil, mustard, nutmeg):

  1. Oreganobetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, swiss cheese, sauce, basil, mustard, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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