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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are thin, baked strips made from flour, parmesan cheese, egg yolk, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix one cupful of flour, one half cupful of grated Parmesan cheese, a dash of cayenne, one half teaspoonful of salt, and the yolk of one egg.

  2. Add enough water to make a paste sufficiently consistent to roll.

  3. Place the dough on a board and roll to a quarter-inch thickness.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into narrow strips and roll each so it will be the size and length of a lead pencil.

  2. Place the strips in a baking tin and press each end on the pan so they will not contract.

  3. Bake to a light brown in a moderate oven.

Serve

  1. Serve with salad. These straws will keep for several days and should be heated just before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

649Calories
30 gProtein
14 gFat
98 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

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

  3. Flour + parmesan cheesetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,944 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once moistened and rolled.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and binds the dough so it holds together when rolled.

The step that matters

Pressing the ends onto the pan. Pressing each end onto the baking tin keeps the thin strips from pulling inward as the dough dries and bakes, so they keep their length and shape.

“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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