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Dessert

Guocchi a LA Ro Maine

A baked custard made with milk, eggs, flour, butter, salt, and grated Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Guocchi a LA Ro Maine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Once boiling, slowly stir in the farina and boil for 4 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs, a little salt, and some grated cheese.

  4. Pour the mixture into a shallow pan to cool completely.

  5. Once firm, cut into small rounds, about the size of a quarter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the rounds in layers on a flat oven‑safe dish, shaping them into a pyramid.

  2. Sprinkle bits of butter and more grated cheese between the layers and on top.

  3. Bake in the oven until delicately browned.

  4. Serve warm.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Farina
Thickens the milk into a firm mass that can be cooled and cut into rounds.
Eggs
Add richness and help the custard set firm when cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the farina cooks and swells in.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Stirring the farina into the boiling milk. Adding farina slowly while stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching, so the mixture thickens evenly into a smooth custard that sets firmly enough to cut.

“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.

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