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Potted Cheese

A smooth cheese spread made with butter, sherry, and spices, served as a relish for bread or toast.

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

Potted Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potted cheese

  1. Beat the cheese in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Add the liquid butter, sherry, cayenne pepper, mace, and salt, and mix well until fully combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a decorative glass jar.

Finish and serve

  1. Top with a layer of butter.

  2. Serve as a relish for bread or toast.

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

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

  2. Cheese + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Cheese
Forms the bulk of the paste and provides the main savoury flavour and body.
Liquid butter
Adds fat that makes the paste smooth, rich and spreadable.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a sweet, winey aroma that brightens the rich cheese.

The step that matters

Beating the cheese until smooth. Cheese left in lumps will not blend evenly with the butter and sherry, so the spread can turn out grainy instead of creamy. Working it until smooth before adding liquids gives an even texture throughout.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, sherry, 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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