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Cheese Croutons

Cheese croutons are toasted bread rounds topped with cheese, mustard, salt, pepper, and served with hot rice and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cheese Croutons

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Fry the bread rounds in a pan until golden brown.

  2. Sprinkle a thin layer of dry mustard over each round.

  3. Add a layer of grated cheese on top.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the rounds in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the cheese is melted.

  2. Top each crouton with a spoonful of hot rice.

  3. Garnish with capers.

  4. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together599 recipes

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

  5. Rice + caperstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread rounds
Provide a crisp, golden base that holds the topping without going soggy.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the cheese.
Grated cheese
Melts into a savoury, binding layer that gives the croutons their main flavour.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese in the oven. Cheese needs enough heat to melt and turn smooth without burning or turning rubbery. Watch it closely, since high heat can make the cheese brown too fast and harden as it cools.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Celeryfits about as well
  2. Capersthe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, mustard, cheese, pepper, rice. 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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