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Fondu

A cheese fondue made by soaking bread crumbs in milk, mixing with butter, cheese, egg yolk, salt, and cayenne, then cooking until smooth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fondu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Melt the butter and mix it with three-fourths of the soaked bread crumbs.

  3. Combine the remaining soaked crumbs with the cut cheese.

  4. Add the cheese mixture to the butter and crumbs.

  5. Incorporate the egg yolk, salt, and cayenne into the mixture.

Cook

  1. Cook in a double boiler until smooth.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides the main flavor and creamy body.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they thicken the mixture and give it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind and thicken the sauce as it heats.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and forms the liquid base of the fondue.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until smooth. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the cheese from overheating and turning grainy or oily. Egg yolk can scramble if the heat is too high, so slow, steady cooking matters.

“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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