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Toasted Cheese

A cheese sauce made with cheese, butter, ale, salt, pepper, mustard, poured over hot buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Toasted Cheese

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Toasted Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cheese into small pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine cheese, butter, ale, salt, pepper, and mustard.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Place the pan over medium heat and stir until the cheese is melted and smooth.

Serve

  1. Prepare hot buttered toast on plates.

  2. Pour the cheese mixture over the toast and serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a smooth sauce that coats the toast and carries the main flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the melted cheese silky and rich.
Ale
Thins the melted cheese and adds a mild, malty tang.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stirring the cheese over medium heat until smooth. Cheese proteins and fat can separate or turn grainy if overheated or heated too fast. Gentle, steady heat and constant stirring let the cheese melt evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, 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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