Name: Cheese Savoury
Ingredients: ½ lb vermicelli; 1 oz butter; Salt; Pepper; ½ lb cheese (Parmesan or rich cheese, grated or thinly sliced); Bread crumbs

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the vermicelli

Boil the vermicelli in water until tender, adding ½ oz of butter and a little salt.

Layer the dish

Butter a tin dish.
Sprinkle a few grated breadcrumbs on the bottom.
Layer the cooked vermicelli in the dish.
Layer the cheese.
Layer the remaining vermicelli.
Season each layer with salt and pepper.
Top with a final layer of breadcrumbs.
Dot with the remaining butter cut into small pieces.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + cheesetop 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

What each ingredient does

Vermicelli: Forms the body of the dish, holding the layers together as it cooks.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, and helps the vermicelli stay tender.
Cheese: Adds savoury flavour and, as it melts, a rich, binding texture between the layers.
Bread crumbs: Form a topping that can brown and crisp, adding texture to the dish.

“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.