Name: Cheese Straws
Ingredients: Pastry; Grated cheese; Coarse sea salt; Cayenne pepper or paprika

Why it works: Cheese and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Straws

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Pastry
Grated cheese
Coarse sea salt
Cayenne pepper or paprika

Directions

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

Roll the pastry to ⅛ inch thick and cut into two pieces.
Sprinkle one piece with grated cheese, seasoned with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper or paprika.
Place the other piece on top and cut into strips ½ inch wide and 5 inches long.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until crisp and brown.

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.

Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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