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Stewed Cheese

A cheese stew made with Gloucester or Cheddar cheese, eggs, ale or Chablis, cayenne, dry mustard, and optional butter or oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheddar cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,436 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cheese into thin slices.

Make the cheese stew

  1. In a clean quart saucepan, combine the cheese with the ale or Chablis, and stir over medium heat until melted.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the dry mustard and cayenne.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the melted cheese for three minutes, then serve hot with toasted or fried bread.

Finish

  1. Optionally, brown the top with a hot iron or salamander, or in front of a brisk fire.

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. Cheddar cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,436 recipes

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

  2. Cheddar cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together708 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cheddar cheese + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich base that carries the whole dish.
Eggs
Their yolks thicken the melted cheese into a creamy, spoonable stew when stirred in.
Ale or chablis
Its liquid helps the cheese melt evenly and smooth out without seizing.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, savoury bite that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the melted cheese. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the cheese is too hot or stirred too little, the yolks can scramble into lumps. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheddar cheese, egg, butter. 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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