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Croustades Marie-Louise

Cheese-stuffed bread squares fried and baked with Parmesan and Gruyère.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and gruyere cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Croustades Marie-Louise

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cases

  1. Cut the stale bread into round squares, hollowing them out to leave ¼ inch thickness.

  2. Fry the bread cases until golden brown.

Fill and top

  1. Mix equal quantities of Parmesan and Gruyère cheeses with a little butter and pepper.

  2. Fill the fried bread cases with the cheese mixture.

  3. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  4. Spread the beaten egg white over the filled cases.

  5. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt just before baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. 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. Parmesan cheese + gruyere cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Gruyere cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the crisp, hollow case that holds the filling.
Parmesan cheese
Adds sharp, savoury flavour and browns well in the oven.
Gruyère cheese
Melts smoothly and adds nutty flavour to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cheese mixture spread and brown.
Egg white
Whipped to stiffness, it forms a light topping that sets and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until stiff. Egg white only holds air and sets into a light crust when whipped to firm peaks. Underwhipped white spreads flat and turns dense and wet on the cases.

“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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