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Roast Cheese

A toasted bread slice topped with a cheese, breadcrumb, butter, pepper, mustard, and egg yolk mixture, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, bread crumbs, butter, white pepper, mustard, and egg yolks until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the cheese mixture over the slice of toast.

  2. Heat in a Dutch oven until lightly browned.

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

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

  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

Rich english cheese
Provides the main flavor and, when melted, the creamy, stretchy body of the topping.
Fine bread crumbs
Add bulk and absorb melted butter, giving the topping a firmer, spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the topping moist and helps it brown evenly in the heat.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness, helping it set smoothly when heated.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

The step that matters

Heat in a Dutch oven until lightly browned. Cheese and egg yolks can turn greasy or rubbery if overheated, while too little heat leaves the topping pale and unset. Watching for a light golden color lets the cheese melt and brown without drying out.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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