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Fondue

A baked cheese fondue made with milk, flour, Parmesan, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, make a smooth paste with milk and flour.

  2. Add grated Parmesan cheese, salt, mustard powder, and pepper; mix well.

  3. Beat the eggs and incorporate them into the paste.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish or patty pans.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown and serve immediately.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth paste.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a paste that gives the fondue body and structure.
Parmesan cheese
Provides rich savory flavor and fat that melts into the base.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the fondue a firm, sliceable structure.

The step that matters

Incorporating the eggs into the paste. Eggs set when heated, so adding them to a paste that is too hot can scramble them, leaving lumps; a smooth, slightly cooled base lets them blend evenly and bake into a uniform custard-like texture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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