Why it works: Pepper and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Macaroni and Cream Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare a white sauce.
Season the boiled macaroni with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Mix the macaroni with the white sauce.
Simmer for five minutes.
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.
-
Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,303 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.