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 ↓
Cheese Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cheese
Trim 8 or 9 slices of cheese into pieces 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.
Pour a little clarified butter over the cheese pieces and sprinkle with Krona pepper.
Let the cheese sit for 1 hour, turning once and seasoning again.
Fry and serve
Prepare the frying batter and season it with cayenne pepper.
Dip the cheese pieces in the batter and fry them in deep fat until well cooked.
Serve quickly.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cheddar cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,436 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Cheddar cheese + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,016 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cheshire or cheddar cheese
- Provides the main filling flavor and melts to a soft interior inside the batter.
- Clarified butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the cheese pieces before frying.
- Frying batter
- Forms a crisp golden coating that seals in the melting cheese while frying.
The step that matters
Fry until well cooked. The batter must be fully set and golden while the cheese softens inside. Frying at too low a heat lets the coating absorb grease and stay pale, while the cheese can leak out before the crust sets.
“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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