Name: Macaroni, Etc
Ingredients: 2 to 3 ounces of butter; freshly grated Parmesan cheese; a few spoonfuls of stock; good tomato sauce; salt; ravioli (filled with your choice of filling); macaroni; mushroom sauce; coralline pepper

Why it works: Parmesan cheese and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,199 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Macaroni, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare ravioli filled with your choice of filling and set them on floured tins.
In boiling salted water, lightly poach the ravioli for five minutes, then drain.
In a saucepan, melt 2 to 3 ounces of butter, add the ravioli, and dust with freshly grated Parmesan.
Add a few spoonfuls of stock and good tomato sauce, and toss gently over heat for a few minutes.
Pour the mixture into a mold, turn it out onto a dish, and remove the mold.
Top with a crown of reserved ravioli, dust with Parmesan, and add a spoonful of tomato sauce before serving.

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.

Parmesan cheese + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,199 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,719 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parmesan cheese, sauce, mushroom, pepper):

Tomatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, sauce, mushroom, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.