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Cheese Fondu

A melted cheese sauce made with butter, flour, milk, and seasonings, served hot with bread or crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondue

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and mustard until smooth.

  3. Gradually add milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add cheese and stir until melted.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in beaten egg.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with bread or crackers.

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

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth base that holds the cheese.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a creamy sauce.
Cheese
Provides the main flavor and melts into the sauce for body.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the sauce as it sets slightly.

The step that matters

Adding the cheese. Cheese added to a hot, thickened sauce can turn grainy or oily if it overheats. Keeping the heat low and stirring while it melts helps it blend smoothly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, milk, butter, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, milk, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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