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Cheese Faggots

A savory pastry made with suet, flour, Parmesan, egg, cayenne, salt, cheddar, and mustard, baked into rings and strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheddar cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 592 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cheese Faggots

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry

  1. Rub the suet lightly into the flour.

  2. Add the finely grated Parmesan cheese, season with cayenne and salt, and mustard if desired.

  3. Bind the mixture with the egg.

Shape

  1. Roll the pastry on a floured board to about 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut into rings using two cutters, one larger than the other.

  3. Cut some short straight lengths about 4 inches long; twist or leave them straight.

  4. Lay the rings and strips on a baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until pale brown.

  2. Steam the strips and place them inside the rings.

  3. Sprinkle grated Cheddar cheese over the top and serve on paper.

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 + cheddar cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together592 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cheddar cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together708 recipes

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

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Fat that coats the flour particles, keeping the pastry short and tender.
Coombs' flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the pastry together.
Parmesan cheese
Adds concentrated savoury, salty flavour throughout the pastry.
Egg
Binds the mixture into a dough and adds richness and structure.
Cheddar cheese
Adds a sharp, savoury cheese flavour on top at serving.

The step that matters

Bake until pale brown. Pastry that is baked too long becomes dry and dark, while underbaking leaves it doughy. Pale brown shows the starches have set and the surface has browned lightly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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