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Cheese Aigrettes

Cheese fritters made from a butter‑flour batter with Parmesan, eggs, and spices, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. In a saucepan, combine the butter and water and bring to a boil.

  2. Sift the flour and quickly add it to the boiling water, stirring thoroughly.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Add the seasoning and cheese, mixing well.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop teaspoons of the mixture into hot oil and fry until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

  2. Move the pan to the side of the heat to prevent over-browning.

  3. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately, piled high on a napkin.

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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
Starch that is cooked into the boiling water to form a thick paste that holds the batter together.
Eggs
Coagulate when heated, giving the fritters structure and a light, puffed interior.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, tenderising the dough and adding flavour.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and salt, and helps the surface brown as it fries.

The step that matters

Move the pan to the side of the heat. Frying at full heat can brown the outside before the centre cooks through. Moving the pan to cooler heat lets the fritters cook evenly while still turning golden.

“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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