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Toasted Cheese

A toasted bread topping made from grated cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, egg yolks, cream, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Toasted Cheese

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 ↓

Toasted Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the topping

  1. In a saucepan, mix the cheese, bread crumbs, butter, egg yolks, cream, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stir over medium heat until heated through.

Assemble and brown

  1. Spread the mixture thickly on toasted bread.

  2. Brown it under a broiler or in a Dutch oven until the cheese is just brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

Cheese
Melts and browns to give the topping its rich, savoury flavour and body.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk and body so the mixture spreads thickly rather than running.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the mixture stay smooth when heated.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat, binding it into a spreadable custard-like paste.

The step that matters

Brown it until the cheese is just brown. Egg yolks and cheese can turn grainy or tough if overheated, so brown gently and watch closely once the cheese begins to colour.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, butter, egg, cream, pepper. 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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