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Dessert

Cheese Aigretts

Cheese aigrettes are fried cheese batter made with butter, flour, water, eggs, Parmesan, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cheese Aigretts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the choux paste

  1. In a saucepan, boil the water and butter together.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Add the egg yolks and whites one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  5. Mix in the grated Parmesan cheese.

Fry and finish

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot fat and fry until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with additional grated cheese.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Starch that thickens the paste and gives the fritters their structure once cooked.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, and the whites help the paste puff and set as it fries.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the paste and helps it stay tender after frying.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and browns slightly in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Let the paste cool slightly before adding the eggs. If the paste is still very hot, the eggs can scramble instead of blending smoothly. A smooth, glossy paste is needed to puff and hold its shape when fried.

“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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