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Cheese Toasted, or Rabbit

A slice of bread toasted and soaked in red wine, topped with cheese, served with mustard, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Toasted, or Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Toast the bread slightly on one side until just browned.

  2. Soak the toasted side of the bread in red wine.

  3. Cut the cheese to fit the bread, removing the rind and any bad parts.

Melt and serve

  1. Place the cheese on the soaked bread in a cheese toaster.

  2. Carefully watch the cheese to prevent burning, stirring to avoid a skin forming.

  3. Serve with mustard, pepper, and salt.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  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

Bread
Provides the base that holds the melted cheese and soaks up the wine.
Red wine
Moistens the toasted bread and adds acidity and flavor to the base.
Mellow cheese
Melts into a creamy layer that browns and forms the topping.
Mustard
Adds sharp, acidic flavor that balances the richness of the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Watch the cheese while it melts. Cheese proteins and fats scorch quickly under direct heat, turning bitter, and a surface skin forms as it dries. Stirring keeps the cheese smooth and evenly melted.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, red wine, cheese, pepper, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, red wine, cheese, pepper, butter. 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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