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Fondue

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in an enamelled saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Add the milk and Parmesan cheese.

  4. Stir on low heat until thick like cream.

  5. Add the garlic, mustard powder, nutmeg, and white pepper. Mix thoroughly.

  6. Taste the mixture. Add salt if needed.

  7. Stir for 10 minutes on moderate heat.

  8. Remove the garlic.

  9. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Stir in the beaten egg yolks mixed with a drop of milk. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour into a deep round tin.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 20 to 30 minutes.

  4. Serve quickly in the tin, wrapped in a napkin.

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. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks and folded in, they lighten the mixture and give the baked fondue its rise.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Parmesan cheese
Provides the main cheese flavour and, melted into the base, body and savoury richness.
Butter
Forms the fat base with the flour, carrying flavour and giving a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that supports the eggs.
Milk
Liquefies the roux and adds moisture so the cheese melts into a creamy base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites deflate if stirred or overmixed. Fold gently with a spatula so the air bubbles stay in, since they are what lift the fondue in the oven.

Swap the garlic

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, parmesan cheese, clove, mustard, nutmeg. 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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