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Cheese Straws

Small thin baked straws of cheese pastry, flavoured with cayenne, salt and mace, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese Straws

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 dough

  1. Mix the Parmesan cheese, butter, flour, creamery cheese, and egg yolk into a stiff paste.

  2. Flavor the mixture with cayenne, salt, and pounded mace.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the mixture thin and cut it into fingers about 4 inches long and ½ inch wide.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes until golden.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, piled on a dish in transverse rows.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the straws brown as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender while baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff paste together.
Creamery cheese
Adds moisture and mild cheesy richness to the dough.
Egg yolk
Binds the dough and adds richness and colour.

The step that matters

Baking until just golden. The straws are thin and dense with cheese and fat, so they can scorch quickly. Pulling them once golden keeps them crisp and prevents bitter, burnt flavour from the cheese.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, butter, flour, cheese, egg, 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.

More cheese straws recipes

Cayenne 11 See all 284 →

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