Name: Cheese Straws
Ingredients: Pasta dough; Parmesan cheese or domestic cheese; Cayenne pepper

Why it works: Pasta and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,289 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Ingredients

Pasta dough
Parmesan cheese or domestic cheese
Cayenne pepper

Directions

Roll out the pasta dough into a thin sheet.
Sprinkle heavily with Parmesan cheese and a little cayenne pepper.
Fold the dough and roll it out again.
Cut into very narrow strips.
Bake until golden.

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.

Pasta + parmesan cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,289 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pasta + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,091 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,322 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).