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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked strips of butter, flour, Parmesan, mustard flour, cayenne, salt, egg whites, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the grated Parmesan cheese, mustard flour, cayenne, and salt. Mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites with the cold water and add to the mixture to form a firm paste.

  4. Knead the paste.

  5. Roll it out to ⅛ inch thick.

  6. Cut into strips about 5 inches long.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 5 minutes until pale brown.

  2. Pile the straws on a dish.

  3. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Coats the flour and adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the straws together as they bake.
Grated parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the straws brown in the oven.
Egg whites
Bind the dough and help it set into a firm, crisp paste.

The step that matters

Baking the straws. Five minutes is short, so the straws can go from pale to burnt quickly. Watch for a pale brown colour and remove them promptly, because sugars and proteins in the cheese darken fast at high heat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parmesan cheese, pepper, egg. 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.

More cheese straws recipes

Cayenne 11 See all 284 →

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