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Roast Cheese to Come Up After Dinner

A toasted bread topped with a mixture of grated Cheshire cheese, eggs, butter, mustard, and seasonings, then heated until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 to Come Up After Dinner

Ingredients

Directions

Make the topping

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated cheese, egg yolks, grated bread, and butter.

  2. Add the mustard, salt, and pepper; mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Toast the bread and cut it into pieces.

  2. Spread the cheese mixture thickly on the toasted bread.

  3. Place the bread in a Dutch oven covered with a dish until heated through.

  4. Remove the dish and let the cheese brown slightly.

  5. Serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Fat cheshire cheese
Melts into a rich, savoury base that gives the topping its flavour and body.
Egg yolks
Bind the cheese and bread into a spreadable mixture that sets lightly when heated.
Grated bread
Adds bulk and soaks up butter and cheese so the topping holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown gently.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

The step that matters

Let the cheese brown slightly. Egg yolks and cheese can turn rubbery or dry if overheated, so the topping should be heated only until it softens and turns lightly golden.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. 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.

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