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Modern Cookery

A baked semolina and cheese dish flavored with cayenne pepper and mace, served with optional brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Assemble

  1. In a basin, mix a small amount of clarified butter with a little cheese.

  2. Layer semolina, cheese, and drops of butter, repeating until all semolina is used.

  3. Top with plenty of cheese and the remaining clarified butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

  2. Carefully turn onto a dish and serve immediately, with brown gravy if desired.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Semolina
Forms the bulk of the bake, setting into a firm, sliceable body as it cooks.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the surface brown and keeps the layers moist.
Grated cheese
Melts through the layers to bind them and browns on top for flavour.
Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the semolina so it can thicken and set.

The step that matters

Carefully turn onto a dish and serve immediately. The bake is soft and set only while warm. Once it cools, the semolina firms further and the layers can crumble, so turning it out promptly and gently keeps its shape.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, semolina, cheese, pepper, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, semolina, cheese, pepper, milk. 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.

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