Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Cheese Straws
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 dough
Sift the flour onto a pastry board and make a well in the center.
Add the cream, grated cheese, butter, egg yolks, and salt to the well.
If the mixture is too stiff, add milk until it can be worked without breaking.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough thinly and cut it into narrow strips.
Bake in a buttered pan at 400°F (200°C) until pale yellow.
Serve
Serve as a relish.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together.
- Grated cheese
- Adds savory flavor and richness to the dough.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the dough tender and short.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind the dough.
- Heavy cream
- Adds moisture and richness to the dough.
The step that matters
Adding milk to the dough. Adding milk only when the mixture is too stiff keeps the dough workable. Too much liquid makes it sticky and hard to shape, while too little makes it crumble and break when rolled.
“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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