Name: Cheese Fondue
Ingredients: ½ pint milk; ½ cup fine bread crumbs; ¼ pound dried cheese, grated; 1 ounce butter; 1 well beaten egg; salt to taste; pepper to taste

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 ↓

Cheese Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

Butter a dish.
Add the milk, bread crumbs, grated cheese, butter, and beaten egg.
Season with salt and pepper.

Cook

Place the mixture into a greased bag.
Cook for 45 minutes.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

Milk: Provides the liquid that softens the bread crumbs and forms the body of the mixture.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and help thicken the mixture.
Cheese: Supplies the main flavor and, as it melts, the creamy texture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer texture.
Egg: Binds the mixture and helps it set as it cooks.

“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.