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Cheese Pie

A baked pie filled with a mixture of Neufchatel cheese, eggs, flour, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a pie plate with plain pastry.

  3. Rub the Neufchatel cheese through a sieve.

Make the filling and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the sieved cheese, beaten eggs, flour, and nutmeg. Stir until well mixed, then fill the crust with the mixture.

  2. Bake until set and lightly golden.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cheese + nutmegtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together684 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Neufchatel cheese
Forms the creamy body of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set when baked.
Flour
Thickens the filling and gives it a stable texture.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs set as they heat, so pulling the pie too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the filling dry and cracked. Baking until just set and lightly golden gives a smooth, firm custard.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

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