Name: Ribs of Beef Braised, with Macaroni
Ingredients: 1 thick piece of beef ribs; vegetables (for masking the bottom of the pan); remains of bacon; salt; macaroni; parmesan cheese

Why it works: Beef and parmesan cheese work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 726 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Ribs of Beef Braised, with Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cut a thick piece off the ribs and shorten the bones.
Place the meat in a stew pan masked with vegetables and bacon.
Season the meat and braise for 3 to 4 hours.
Once done, skim the fat from the cooking stock and pour it into a sauceboat.
Drain the meat, dish it up, and garnish with macaroni and parmesan 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.

Beef + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together726 recipes

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

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