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Cheese Tartlets

Cheese Tartlets are small pastries filled with a mixture of eggs, cheese, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,322 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Tartlets

fourteen tartlets
Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Combine the yolks of the eggs, grated cheese, cayenne, and salt into the white sauce and mix well.

  2. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the cheese mixture.

Bake the tartlets

  1. Line fourteen patty pans with rough puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry with the cheese mixture and bake at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

  3. Avoid banging the oven door.

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 + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Sauce + parmesan cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  4. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the sauce and whipped whites lighten the filling as it sets.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and body to the filling and helps it brown as it bakes.
White sauce
Forms the creamy base that holds the cheese and egg mixture together.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air that gives the filling its rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the foam and leaves the tartlets dense.

“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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