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To Toast Cheese

A toasted cheese dish made with Gloucester cheese, butter, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, served on toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

To Toast Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the cheese

  1. Combine the shavings of Gloucester cheese and 1 tablespoon of butter in a cheese toaster.

  2. Place the mixture before the fire until the cheese dissolves, stirring occasionally.

  3. Serve with slices of toasted bread, cut into quarters.

Make the cheese topping

  1. For another method, mix bread crumbs, 2.5 ounces of butter, grated cheese, egg yolks, cream, mustard, salt, and pepper in a saucepan.

  2. Stir until heated.

  3. Spread the mixture thickly on small pieces of toasted bread.

  4. Brown under a salamander or hot shovel, or place in a Dutch oven until hot and cheese is just browned.

  5. Serve as hot as possible.

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 + breadtop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Gloucester cheese
Melts into a smooth, rich layer that forms the body of the toast.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the cheese melt smoothly and gives a rich flavour.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the mixture so it holds together and spreads thickly.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and add richness as they heat.
Good cheese
Provides the main cheesy flavour and helps the topping set and brown.

The step that matters

Heat the topping gently while stirring. Cheese and egg yolks can turn grainy or curdle if overheated. Stirring over gentle heat keeps the mixture smooth and creamy before browning.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

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