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Cheese Ramekins

A cheese and egg mixture spread on buttered toast and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Cheese Ramekins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the cheese.

  2. Beat the yolk of the egg.

  3. Melt the butter.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the cheese, egg yolk, butter, mushroom ketchup, and a little pepper together.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the mixture thickly on buttered toast.

  2. Brown the toast before the fire.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Provides the main flavour and, when melted, a rich, stretchy body that holds the topping together.
Egg
Yolk binds the mixture and adds richness and smoothness so it spreads and sets evenly.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, moist texture and helps the mixture brown lightly.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth that rounds out the cheese flavour.

The step that matters

Brown the toast before the fire. Browning depends on heat and time; too little and the topping stays pale and raw-tasting, too much and the cheese scorches and turns bitter. Watch closely as the topping colours.

“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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