Name: Spaghetti with Mushrooms
Ingredients: spaghetti; salt; stewed mushrooms; cracker crumbs; butter

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Spaghetti with Mushrooms

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Boil the spaghetti in salted water until tender; drain.

Assemble and bake

Layer the spaghetti and seasoned stewed mushrooms in a baking dish.
Sprinkle cracker crumbs and bits of butter on top.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

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.

Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Spaghetti: Forms the bulk of the dish and holds the layers together as it bakes.
Stewed mushrooms: Add moisture and savory flavor that soaks into the pasta as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs: Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the topping brown as it melts.

“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.