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Cheese Pate

A spreadable cheese pate made with cheese, butter, Worcestershire sauce, Liebig’s Extract of Meat, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Pate

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grate the cheese finely.

  2. Mix the butter and cheese thoroughly with a fork.

  3. Add the Worcestershire sauce or Yorkshire relish, Liebig’s Extract of Meat, and black pepper, then mix all ingredients together and transfer to a jar.

  4. Seal the jar tightly.

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

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cheese + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together564 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cheese
Provides the main body, rich savoury flavour, and firm texture of the pate.
Fresh butter
Adds fat that makes the mixture smooth and spreadable.
Worcestershire sauce or yorkshire relish
Adds acidity and savoury depth that sharpens the cheese flavour.
Liebig’s extract of meat
Adds concentrated meaty, savoury umami flavour.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and cheese thoroughly. Finely grated cheese blended well with softened butter forms an even, spreadable paste. Unevenly mixed pockets of cheese or butter leave the pate grainy and inconsistent in texture and flavour.

“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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