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Fondue

A custard-like fondue made from eggs, butter, and grated Gruyère cheese, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and gruyere cheese work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 323 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Fondue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh the eggs and note the total weight.

  2. Measure out butter to equal half the weight of the eggs.

  3. Measure out grated Gruyère cheese to equal a third of the weight of the eggs.

  4. Break and beat the eggs thoroughly in a saucepan.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the butter and cheese to the eggs.

  2. Place the saucepan on the fire and stir with a wooden spoon until thickened like custard.

  3. Add pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Serve immediately without allowing it to boil.

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 + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + gruyere cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Gruyere cheese + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together322 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

Eggs
Coagulate as they heat, setting the mixture into a thick, custard-like body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel as it melts into the eggs.
Grated gruyère cheese
Adds savoury flavour and body, and melts into the eggs to thicken the mixture further.

The step that matters

Stirring over heat without letting it boil. Egg proteins set gently with steady stirring over moderate heat. If the mixture boils or overheats, the proteins tighten and squeeze out water, leaving the fondue grainy and curdled.

“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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