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Potted Cheese

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Potted Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scrape and pound the Parmesan and Cheshire cheese with the butter.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, pounded mace, sifted sugar, white wine, and salt.

  3. Mix until well combined.

  4. Press the mixture into a potting jar to shape.

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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + white winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, cheese, butter, pepper, sugar, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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