Name: Cheese Straws
Ingredients: puff paste or rough puff; rich grated cheese; 1 egg yolk; mustard (for serving); cress or parsley (for garnish)

Why it works: Mustard and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,588 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Roll out the puff paste to a thickness of about ¼ inch.
Cut the paste into strips 1.5 inches wide and 4 inches long.
Place a little grated cheese along the center of half the strips.
Top each cheese-filled strip with another strip to form a sandwich.
Brush the top of each sandwich with the egg yolk.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.
Serve cold or warm, stacked on a napkin, with mustard and cress or parsley.

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.

Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cheese + parsleytop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,507 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,253 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).