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Tagliarini with Gravy

Tagliarini with gravy is a pasta dish served with a slow‑cooked beef and mushroom gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tagliarini with Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a pot, heat butter and olive oil or lard until hot.

  2. Add pieces of roast beef and brown well.

  3. Pour in white wine and cook for a while.

  4. Add chopped onion, garlic, and soaked mushrooms.

  5. Add chopped tomatoes, salt, and pepper.

  6. Cook slowly for at least 2 hours, adding broth as needed.

Cook the noodles

  1. In a soup pot, fill halfway with boiling water and add a pinch of salt.

  2. Drop noodles little by little, stirring carefully.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Strain noodles and place in a flat dish.

Layer and serve

  1. Layer with gravy and grated Parmesan cheese, then repeat with another layer of noodles, gravy, and cheese.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the browning base of the gravy.
Roast beef
Provides the meaty base of the gravy, which becomes tender during slow cooking.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the gravy as it reduces.
Dried mushrooms
Contribute concentrated savoury, earthy flavour to the gravy.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, thickening the gravy as they break down.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and melts into the layers.

The step that matters

Cook the gravy slowly for at least 2 hours. Slow simmering lets the connective tissue in the beef break down, making it tender, while the sauce concentrates. Cooking too fast can leave the meat tough and the gravy thin and harsh.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, olive, beef, white wine, garlic, mushroom, tomato):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, olive, beef, white wine, garlic, mushroom, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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