Name: The Macaroni
Ingredients: 3 quarts water; 1 tablespoon salt; 4-5 sticks macaroni; 3 tablespoons water (for mushrooms); 1 walnut-sized piece of butter; juice of ½ lemon; pinch of salt (for mushrooms)

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 ↓

The Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

Boil 3 quarts of water in a large casserole and add 1 tablespoon of salt.
Take 4-5 sticks of macaroni, plunge one end into the boiling water, and curl them around the casserole as they soften.
Once the water boils again, cover the casserole and cook on low heat for 25 minutes.
Drain the macaroni in a colander and plunge it into cold water to cool.

Prepare the macaroni and mushrooms

Spread half of the macaroni on a clean cloth, laying them out straight for the timbales.
Cut the remaining macaroni into 1.5-inch pieces for the chicken dressing.
For the dressing, clean the mushrooms and place them in a casserole with 3 tablespoons of water, butter, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.
Cover and cook the mushrooms on an open fire for about 4 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).
Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together763 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,832 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it a firm, pasta-based structure.
Mushrooms: Add earthy flavor and moisture to the chicken dressing as they cook.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavor when cooking the mushrooms.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the mushrooms and balances the butter.