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.
Make the dough
Roll the leftover crust to ½ inch thick.
Sprinkle with grated cheese and a little cayenne pepper.
Fold the dough and roll it out again.
Cut and bake
Cut into strips measuring 1 by 6 inches.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
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.
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Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,861 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
- Leftover crust
- Provides the dough base, whose rolling and folding give the straws their layered structure.
- Grated cheese
- Adds savory flavor and fat, and browns during baking for a golden color.
The step that matters
Bake until golden. Cheese browns quickly in a hot oven, so the straws can go from golden to dark and bitter within minutes. Check them early and remove them once they are evenly golden.
“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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