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Fondue

A cheese fondue made with eggs, Gruyère, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Gruyere cheese and butter 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 based on the number of guests.

  2. Weigh out Gruyère cheese to be 1/3 of the egg weight and butter to be 1/6 of the egg weight.

  3. Break and beat the eggs in a basin, then add the butter, grated cheese, salt, and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a saucepan over a clear flame with a small piece of butter the size of a nut until melted.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and stir with a spoon until thick but very soft.

  3. Serve warm on a dish and bring it quickly to the table.

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. Gruyere cheese + buttertop 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
Provide the structure that sets into a thick, soft, custard-like body.
Gruyere cheese
Adds rich flavour and melts into the eggs for a creamy, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a silkier mouthfeel and helps keep the mixture from sticking.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture over heat. Eggs set when heated, so stirring gently over a clear, moderate flame keeps the mixture thick but very soft. Too much heat or too little stirring can make it curdle or turn grainy.

“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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