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Dessert

Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are baked strips of dough flavored with Parmesan and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the flour, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk, egg yolk, and softened butter. Mix until smooth.

  3. Divide the dough into two parts and roll each very thin.

Cut and bake

  1. Cut the rolled dough into narrow strips, each three inches long.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold, either as a cheese course or with salad.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin dough together when rolled and baked.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory cheese flavor and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, crisp texture and rich flavor.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and binds the dough, helping it come together smoothly.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough dries and crisps evenly in the oven. Thick pieces stay soft in the middle and may not bake through in the stated time.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, parmesan cheese, butter, milk, pepper, egg. 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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