Name: Auditorium Cheese
Ingredients: 1 lb Roquefort cheese; 2 teaspoons English mustard; ½ lb butter; 1 clove garlic, grated; 1 small onion, grated; 2 tablespoons paprika; ¼ teaspoon salt; ⅓ cup sherry or ⅓ cup brandy

Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Auditorium Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spread

In a bowl, mix the Roquefort cheese, English mustard, butter, grated garlic, grated onion, paprika, salt, and sherry or brandy until well combined.

Chill

Transfer the mixture to a container and refrigerate until firm.

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.

Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,053 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,829 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Roquefort cheese: Provides the main flavour and, with the butter, the body of the spread.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the spread smooth and spreadable once chilled.
Sherry or brandy: Adds alcohol that carries aroma and lightly thins the mixture.
Onion: Adds savoury sharpness and aroma when grated finely into the spread.
English mustard: Adds sharp heat that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roquefort cheese, mustard, butter, garlic, onion, sherry):

Thymefits better
Capersfits better
Celeryfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roquefort cheese, mustard, butter, garlic, onion, sherry. 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.