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Cheese Potted

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cheese Potted

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, beat the Cheshire cheese and butter together until smooth.

  2. Add the sack and mace, and mix well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pot.

  4. Pour clarified butter over the top to seal.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, sherry):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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