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Cheese Aigrettes

Cheese aigrettes are fried dough balls with cheese, cayenne, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cheese Aigrettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the butter and water to a boil.

  3. Add the flour and beat until thick and smooth.

  4. Cool slightly, then mix in the egg, egg yolk, grated cheese, cayenne, and salt.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan until it just begins to smoke.

  2. Drop small teaspoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then drain on paper towels.

  4. Sprinkle with additional grated cheese and serve 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. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the choux-style paste that gives the aigrettes their structure when cooked.
Butter
Enriches the paste and adds richness and flavour to the fried dough.
Eggs
Bind the paste and help it puff and set as it cooks.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a nutty aroma throughout the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying the dough in hot oil. Oil that is hot enough sets the outside quickly and browns it, so the inside cooks without the fritters absorbing excess grease. Oil that is too cool makes them soggy and greasy.

“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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