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Choice Lunch Relish

A warm cheese and cracker relish made with melted cheese, milk, butter, pepper, salt, and crushed Boston crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Choice Lunch Relish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the relish

  1. In a skillet, combine the cheese, milk, pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Stir continuously over medium heat until the cheese melts.

  3. Gradually add the crushed Boston crackers while stirring.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 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 the milk to form a smooth, creamy base with rich flavor.
Boston crackers
Thicken the melted mixture and add body and a toasted, wheaty flavor.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that melts the cheese and keeps the relish smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir continuously over medium heat until the cheese melts. Cheese proteins tighten and turn grainy or stringy if overheated or left unstirred, so steady stirring over moderate heat keeps the mixture smooth and emulsified.

“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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