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Toasts of Cheese

A simple cheese toast made with clarified butter, Parmesan, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Toasts of Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the clarified butter, grated cheese, mustard, black pepper, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture evenly on the slices of toast.

  2. Sprinkle additional grated cheese on top of each toast.

  3. Serve on a napkin.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Parmesan cheese + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Clarified butter
Adds fat that carries the seasonings and helps the topping crisp and brown.
Parmesan or gloucester cheese
Provides savoury flavour and melts and browns on the toast.
Ready-made mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the cheese and butter.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, 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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