Name: Noodles with Tomatoes
Ingredients: noodles; 1 cup tomato sauce; 1 tablespoon butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon grated Swiss cheese; 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Why it works: Swiss cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 151 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Noodles with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the noodles

Prepare the noodles and boil them.
Drain the noodles.
Place the noodles in a frying pan.

Cook the sauce

Add the tomato sauce, butter, salt, and pepper.
Mix well with a fork.
Cook for 5 minutes.
Stir in the grated Swiss and Parmesan cheese carefully.

Serve

Pour into a deep hot dish.
Serve.

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.

Swiss cheese + parmesan cheesetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together151 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + swiss cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together413 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,490 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Noodles: Form the bulk of the dish and carry the sauce.
Tomato sauce: Provides moisture and acidity that coat the noodles.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Swiss cheese: Melts into the sauce to add savoury depth and stretch.
Parmesan cheese: Adds salty, savoury flavour and helps the sauce cling.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, butter, pepper, swiss cheese, parmesan cheese):

Tomatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Potatofits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, pepper, swiss cheese, parmesan cheese. 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.