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Croustades Marie Louise

Cheese-filled bread shells topped with whipped egg whites, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Croustades Marie Louise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the shells

  1. Cut the bread into small rounds and hollow them out to create shells.

  2. Fry the bread shells in boiling fat until golden.

Fill and top

  1. Grate equal amounts of Parmesan and Gruyère cheese, mix with a little butter and a dust of cayenne.

  2. Fill the bread shells with the cheese mixture.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and place a small heap on each croustade.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a quiet oven at 300°F (150°C) for a few minutes.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Forms the crisp shell that holds the filling.
Parmesan cheese and gruyère cheese
Melt into the filling and add savoury, salty flavour.
Egg whites
Whisked to stiff peaks, they set into a light, airy topping when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cheese mixture bind and melt smoothly.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites hold air only when fully whisked and free of any fat or yolk. Under-whisked whites stay runny and spread, while over-whisked whites turn grainy and collapse in the oven.

“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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