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Modern Cookery

A baked semolina cheese casserole with milk, butter, spices, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and cook the semolina

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a pot, bring the milk to a gentle simmer.

  3. Gradually whisk in the semolina and salt, stirring continuously for 10 minutes until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the grated cheese, cayenne, mace, and butter until melted.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.

  3. Let cool slightly before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 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. Milk + macetop 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
Its starch thickens the milk into a firm, sliceable mass as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that semolina thickens and gives the bake a creamy body.
Grated cheese
Adds fat and savory flavor, and melts into the mixture for richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness and helps the bake brown at the surface.

The step that matters

Whisking in the semolina. Semolina must be added gradually and stirred constantly, or it clumps and cooks unevenly. Its starch needs steady heat and stirring to thicken the milk smoothly before baking.

Swap the mace

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

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

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