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Cheese Straws

Cheese straws are thin strips of baked pastry made with grated cheese, flour, butter, egg yolk and mustard.

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 Straws

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, flour, butter, egg yolk, and mustard to form a thick paste.

  2. Roll out the paste and cut it into long, narrow strips.

Bake

  1. Place the strips on a baking sheet and bake until light brown, about 10 minutes.

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Grated cheese
Provides rich flavor and fat, and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the paste together and lets it roll and cut cleanly.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, crisp texture and rich flavor.
Egg yolk
Binds the paste and adds richness and color.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savory flavor that balances the cheese.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Baking only until light brown keeps the straws crisp and prevents the cheese and butter from scorching, since the fat and sugars brown quickly at high heat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, flour, butter, egg. 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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