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Fondue

A custard-like cheese fondue made with eggs, butter, and grated Gruyère.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and gruyere cheese work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh the eggs and measure the butter and cheese accordingly.

  2. Break and beat the eggs thoroughly in a saucepan.

  3. Add the butter and cheese to the eggs.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the saucepan on the fire and stir with a wooden spoon until thick like custard.

  2. Add pepper and salt if needed.

  3. Serve immediately; do not let it boil.

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 + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + gruyere cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Gruyere cheese + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a thick, custard-like base as they cook and are stirred.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the custard.
Grated gruyere cheese
Melts into the eggs, adding savory flavor and body to the fondue.

The step that matters

Stir over heat and do not let it boil. Egg proteins set gradually as they warm. If the mixture boils, they tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thick custard.

“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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