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Stewed Cheese

A cheese fondue made by melting Cheshire and Gloucester cheeses with Lisbon wine, water, and optional mustard, served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the Cheshire and Gloucester cheese into small pieces and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add the Lisbon wine, water, and mustard (if using).

Melt and serve

  1. Heat over a fire until the cheese is dissolved.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a cheese plate with a lighted lamp beneath.

  3. Serve immediately with fresh toasted bread in a toast rack.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together651 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Wine + breadtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together956 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cheshire cheese
Melts into a smooth, creamy base that gives the fondue its body.
Gloucester cheese
Adds further melting body and flavour to the cheese base.
Lisbon wine
Its acidity helps keep the melted cheese smooth rather than stringy or greasy.
Water
Adds moisture that helps the cheese melt evenly into a fluid sauce.

The step that matters

Heat over a fire until the cheese is dissolved. Cheese proteins toughen and separate from their fat when overheated, so the heat should stay gentle and steady while the cheese melts into a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, wine, bread):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, wine, bread. 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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