Name: Fried Cheese
Ingredients: cheese (2 inches long, 1 inch wide, ½ inch thick); oiled butter; pepper; batter (thick)

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 ↓

Fried Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

cheese (2 inches long, 1 inch wide, ½ inch thick)
oiled butter
pepper
batter (thick)

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Cut the cheese into slices.
Pour oiled butter over the slices and sprinkle with pepper.
Let sit for 30 minutes, turning once.

Batter and bake

Dip each piece in the thick batter.
Place in a buttered baking dish and cook in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 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.

Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese: Forms the main body of the dish and softens and melts as it heats.
Batter: Forms a coating that browns and crisps in the oven and holds the cheese together.
Oiled butter: Adds fat that helps the surface brown and gives a rich flavour.

“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.