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Noodles and Cheese

A baked casserole of egg noodles topped with a creamy cheese sauce, served with peas or asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Noodles and Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the noodles

  1. Boil the Italian egg noodles in water for about 15 minutes.

  2. Mix flour and eggs to form a dough, roll it out, and cut into strips for homemade noodles.

  3. Dry the homemade noodles for 1 hour, then drop them into boiling water until cooked, about 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the noodles and rinse with cold water to separate them.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler, then add cheese, cayenne pepper, and salt until melted.

  2. Stir in the yolks of the beaten eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a baking dish, add the noodles, and pour the cheese mixture over them.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Serve in the baking dish with green peas or asparagus and garnish with 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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whole eggs bind the homemade noodle dough, and yolks enrich and thicken the cheese sauce.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the cheese sauce, giving it moisture and a creamy texture.
American cheese
Melts into the milk to form a smooth sauce and gives the casserole its main flavour.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the homemade noodle dough together.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the cheese sauce. Egg yolks can scramble when they meet hot liquid, leaving bits instead of a smooth sauce. Keeping the heat low and stirring the yolks in gradually lets them thicken the sauce gently.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, cheese, pepper, parsley):

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, cheese, pepper, parsley. 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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