Skip to main content
Main

Modern Cookery

A baked semolina dish with cheese, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a pot, bring the milk to a gentle simmer.

Make the pudding

  1. Gradually whisk in the semolina and salt, stirring continuously for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and mix in the grated cheese, cayenne, mace, and butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes until set and lightly browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Thickens the milk into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cooks and sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina hydrates and swells in.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the pudding set and brown.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and smoother texture.
Ground mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Whisking in the semolina. Adding semolina slowly while stirring constantly prevents lumps, because starch granules clump when dropped into hot liquid all at once. Continuous stirring for the full 10 minutes also fully hydrates and thickens the semolina, which is needed for the pudding to set properly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, semolina, cheese, pepper, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, semolina, cheese, pepper, butter. 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes