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Cheese Dreams

A grilled cheese sandwich made with grated New York cheese, spices, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Dreams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the grated cheese with coarse sea salt, paprika, and a little mustard.

  2. Spread butter on thin slices of bread.

  3. Spread the cheese mixture on one slice and top with another slice of bread.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the sandwiches in butter until golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately with coffee and olives.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

New york cheese
Melts into the filling and provides the main savory flavor and richness.
Butter
Fat that fries the bread, promoting browning and a crisp, golden crust.
Slices of bread
Form the structure that holds the filling and crisps when fried.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Frying the sandwiches in butter. Medium heat is needed so the bread browns evenly while the cheese melts through. Too high a heat scorches the crust before the filling softens, and too low a heat leaves the bread pale and greasy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, bread. 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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