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Boiled Cheese

A dish of melted cheese made by boiling milk, butter, and grated cheese, then adding beaten egg and broiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese mixture

  1. In a saucepan over low heat, combine milk, butter, and grated cheese.

  2. Stir until the mixture boils.

  3. Add the beaten egg and stir well.

Brown and serve

  1. Transfer to a dish and brown under a broiler.

  2. Serve very 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the base to provide the rich flavor and creamy body of the dish.
Egg
Sets when heated, thickening the cheese mixture and giving it a firmer, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the mixture smooth and rich, helping it blend without greasiness.
Milk
Provides liquid that helps the cheese melt smoothly and loosens the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the mixture is too hot when the egg goes in, it can scramble or curdle. Stirring well keeps the egg evenly distributed for a smooth, thickened result.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, cheese, 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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