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Cheese Toast

A cheese toast made by blending cheese with milk, egg yolks, mustard, salt, and red pepper, then cooking and serving on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cheese Toast

Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a double boiler, combine cheese and milk.

  2. Stir until the cheese is blended with the milk.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks, mustard, salt, and red pepper.

Serve

  1. Cook lightly and serve immediately on 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the milk to form the smooth, rich body of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the cheese mixture into a creamy, spreadable sauce as they gently cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid that melts the cheese and keeps the sauce smooth and moist.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that balances the richness of the cheese and egg yolks.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks to the warm mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Keep the heat low in the double boiler and stir steadily so the sauce becomes smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, milk, egg, pepper. 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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