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 ↓
Cheese Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
In a pot, combine the milk, cheese, salt, pepper, and butter.
Heat over medium until just scalded.
Finish and serve
Quickly stir in the beaten eggs.
Remove from heat immediately to prevent curdling.
Serve hot as a tea relish.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,861 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its smooth, creamy body.
- Cheese
- Adds rich flavour and fat, and melts into the liquid to thicken the soup.
- Eggs
- Set gently with heat to thicken the soup and give it body.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Remove from heat immediately after adding the eggs. Egg proteins set when heated too far, so the eggs can scramble and curdle the soup. Stirring them in quickly and taking the pot off the heat keeps the mixture smooth and thickened.
“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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