Name: Puttenham Cheese
Ingredients: 1 egg; 3 oz. cheese

Why it works: Egg and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,253 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Puttenham Cheese

Ingredients

1 egg
3 oz. cheese

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, beat the egg and cheese together until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake for 10 minutes or until set.

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.

Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg: Sets the mixture as it heats, giving the bake its firm, cohesive structure.
Cheese: Adds richness and fat, and melts to give the bake its flavour and texture.

“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.