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Cooking Cheese

A baked cheese custard made with Parmesan, butter, flour, milk, garlic, mustard, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cooking Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt an ounce of butter in an enamelled saucepan, and stir into it a tablespoonful of flour.

  2. When the two are well amalgamated, put in a small quantity of milk and about three ounces of grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Stir the mixture on a very slow fire until it becomes thick cream, but beware of it becoming too hot or boiling.

  4. Add one clove of garlic, a small quantity of mustard, a dash of powdered nutmeg, and some finely powdered white pepper.

  5. Mix thoroughly, and if upon tasting you find that it is required, add a little salt.

Add the eggs

  1. Keep stirring the mixture at a very moderate heat for ten minutes, then remove the clove of garlic, take the saucepan off the fire, stirring occasionally until the contents are nearly cold, and then stir in the yolks of three eggs beaten up with the least drop of milk and strained.

  2. Mix well, then incorporate swiftly the whites of five eggs beaten up into a stiff froth.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a deep round tin, and put it into the oven, which must not be too hot.

  2. Bake for twenty to thirty minutes until the Fondue is ready for table, then quickly serve in the tin with a napkin pinned round it.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

777Calories
30 gProtein
27 gFat
102 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Puddingnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. 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. See the original page.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whipped whites set the custard and give it a light, puffed texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and body, and firms as the custard sets.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form the base and carries flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, stable base.
Milk (in the method)
Liquid that loosens the flour base into a thick cream.

The step that matters

Whisking in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to a stiff froth and folded in swiftly, since over-mixing deflates the air that lifts the custard in the oven.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parmesan cheese, clove, butter, flour, nutmeg, egg, mustard):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, clove, butter, flour, nutmeg, egg, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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