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Cheese, Toasted

A toasted cheese sandwich flavored with mustard and pepper, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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, Toasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cheese into thin slices.

Make the cheese topping

  1. Melt the cheese in a cheese-toaster on a hot plate or over steam.

  2. Once melted, add mixed mustard and pepper, stirring until completely dissolved.

  3. Fill the bottom of the cheese-toaster with hot water.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown the cheese before the fire or with a salamander.

  2. Serve with dry or buttered toast.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cheese + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Rich cheese
Melts into a smooth sauce and provides the main flavour and richness.
Toast
Provides a crisp base that holds the melted cheese.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese.
Porter or port wine
Adds depth and a mellow sweetness to the melted cheese.

The step that matters

Browning the cheese. Cheese that is browned too little stays pale and pasty, while too much heat can make it oily or scorched. Watching the surface closely lets the cheese brown through the Maillard reaction, which builds savoury, toasted flavour.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, pepper, port wine, butter. 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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