Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese Neuveau
Ingredients
Directions
Layer
Butter the slices of bread and place them in a frying pan.
Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the bread.
Add a thick layer of grated cheese on top.
Repeat with another layer of bread and salted cheese until the pan is full.
Steam and serve
Pour 1 cup of rich milk over the layers.
Cover the pan and steam on low heat for 20 to 30 minutes.
Turn onto a hot platter and serve immediately.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Forms the body of the dish and soaks up the milk as it steams.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness and helps the bread brown lightly in the pan.
- Grated cheese
- Melts between the bread layers, adding flavor and binding the slices together.
- Rich milk
- Provides moisture that soaks into the bread and softens it during steaming.
The step that matters
Steam covered on low heat. Covering the pan traps steam so the milk soaks into the bread and the cheese melts evenly. Low heat prevents the milk from boiling away or the bottom from scorching before the center softens.
“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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