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
Grate the cheese.
Mix the grated cheese with the egg yolks, grated bread, butter, mustard, salt, and pepper in a mortar.
Assemble and bake
Toast the bread.
Cut the toasted bread into pieces.
Spread the cheese mixture thickly on the toasted bread.
Place the bread in a Dutch oven covered with a dish until heated through.
Remove the dish.
Let the cheese brown slightly.
Serve
Serve hot.
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.
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,805 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 cheese
- Melts into the mixture to give the topping its rich, savoury body.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind the topping so it spreads thickly and sets.
- Grated bread
- Absorbs fat and moisture, giving the topping body and a firmer texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown lightly when heated.
- Mustard
- Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.
The step that matters
Let the cheese brown slightly. Under a covered dish the topping heats through gently; once the cover is removed, the cheese can quickly over-darken. Watching it closely keeps it golden rather than scorched, since browning is driven by heat and time.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, egg, bread, butter, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Potatofits about as well
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, bread, butter, pepper. 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.
More cheese toast recipes
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
Macaroni and Cheese102 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Bread Omelette60 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.