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Cheese Straws

Cheese Straws are baked dough sticks made with flour, cheese, salt, cayenne pepper, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine flour, grated cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Mix in enough ice water to form a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Cut into straw shapes before baking.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cheesetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,860 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Adds fat and savory flavor, and helps the straws brown.
Ice water
Hydrates the flour to bind the dough into a stiff paste.

The step that matters

Mix in enough ice water to form a stiff paste. Too much water makes the dough sticky and hard to roll, while too little leaves it crumbly. Cold water keeps the fat in the cheese from softening, which helps the dough stay firm and easy to 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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