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Italian Cheese Toast

A toasted bread topped with a warm cheese and egg mixture flavored with butter, shallot, mustard, lemon, wine, and garlic vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Italian Cheese Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the Parmesan, butter, shallot, mustard, lemon juice, wine, and garlic vinegar.

  2. Stir over gentle heat until the cheese melts.

  3. Add one beaten egg and stir continuously over reduced heat.

  4. Add the second beaten egg and stir again.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the toast, ensuring it doesn't run over the sides.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the cheese mixture as they cook, giving it a creamy, spreadable body.
Parmesan cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding salty, savoury flavour and a rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and keeps the melted cheese smooth.
Italian mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the cheese and egg.

The step that matters

Add the eggs over reduced heat while stirring. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures and can scramble if the mixture is too hot or left unstirred. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parmesan cheese, egg, butter, shallot, lemon, wine, garlic):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, egg, butter, shallot, lemon, wine, garlic. 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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