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Roast Cheese

A toasted bread topped with a mixture of grated cheese, egg yolks, bread crumbs, butter, mustard, salt, and pepper, then heated until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the topping

  1. Mix the grated cheese, egg yolks, grated bread, butter, mustard, salt, and pepper in a mortar until well combined.

  2. Toast some bread and cut it into pieces.

  3. Spread the cheese mixture thickly on the toasted bread.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the bread in a Dutch oven covered with a dish until heated through.

  2. Remove the dish and let the cheese brown slightly.

  3. 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheshire cheese
Provides the main savoury flavour and melts into a rich, spreadable topping.
Egg yolks
Bind the cheese mixture and add richness, helping it set smoothly when heated.
Grated bread
Adds body to the mixture and absorbs fat so the topping holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for moisture and richness, and helps the topping brown lightly.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

The step that matters

Letting the cheese brown slightly. Cheese browns quickly once its surface gets hot, and the proteins and sugars react as they brown. Removing the cover at the right moment gives colour and flavour without scorching or drying the topping.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, bread, butter, 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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