Name: Cheese Crusts
Ingredients: day-old bread; grated cheese; pepper; coarse sea salt; butter

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 Crusts

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Cut the bread into small, even slices and remove the crusts.
Grate enough cheese to have 1 tablespoon for each slice of bread.
Place 1 tablespoon of grated cheese on each slice of bread.
Add a pinch of pepper, a pinch of coarse sea salt, and a small piece of butter (about the size of a dried bean) on top.

Bake and serve

Arrange the slices on a pan and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and the bread is toasted.
Serve hot or cold as a snack or with salad.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Day-old bread: Its dry, firm crumb holds the topping and toasts into a crisp base.
Grated cheese: Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Butter: Adds fat that helps the topping brown and gives a richer taste.

“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.