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Cheese Fingers

Cheese Fingers are pastry strips folded and baked with grated cheese, pepper, and sea salt, finished with beaten egg and powdered cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Fingers

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the pastry into strips 3 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  2. Sprinkle grated cheese over the strips and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Fold the pastry lengthwise and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the tops with the beaten egg just before removing from the oven.

  2. Sift a little powdered cheese on top.

  3. Serve immediately on a folded napkin in a flat dish.

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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Good pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling and bakes golden.
Grated cheese
Melts into the pastry, adding savoury flavour and a rich, stretchy texture.
Beaten egg
Brushed on top, it promotes even browning and a glossy finish.
Powdered cheese
Sifted over the top, it adds a dry, sharp cheese flavour at the surface.

The step that matters

Brushing with the beaten egg just before removing from the oven. Egg proteins set and brown quickly at high heat, so brushing too early can over-darken the surface, while brushing too late leaves the glaze dull and uneven.

“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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