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Dessert

Cheese Aigrettes

Cheese Aigrettes are small fried cheese fritters made with flour, water, cheese, eggs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Aigrettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the choux base

  1. Boil the butter and water together.

  2. Add sifted flour and beat until it forms a ball.

  3. Mix in the cheese and seasonings.

  4. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil until barely smoking.

  2. Drop the mixture by small teaspoonfuls into the hot oil.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

  4. Drain on fancy paper and dust with Parmesan cheese.

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. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the starch base that holds the paste together and gives the fritters structure.
Eggs
Bind the paste and set during frying to give the puffed, airy interior.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the paste, softening the texture as it melts into the water.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and a rich taste to the paste.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs, a little at a time.. Adding eggs gradually lets each addition emulsify fully into the paste. Too much at once can make it slack and greasy, so it will not hold its shape or puff in the oil.

“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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