Name: Cheese Straws
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons flour; 1 tablespoon milk; 3 tablespoons grated cheese; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Milk and butter 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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix the flour, cheese, salt, and cayenne pepper.
Add the milk, egg yolk, and butter, and mix until smooth.
Divide the mixture into 2 parts.

Bake and serve

Shape and place on a baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes.
Serve hot or cold, piled on a plate in a log cabin style.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Egg yolk: Binds the dough and adds richness, helping it hold its shape.
Butter: Adds fat for a tender, crisp texture and rich flavour.
Grated cheese: Provides savoury flavour and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together.

“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.