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
In a roast pot, heat butter and olive oil until hot.
Add pieces of roast beef and brown well.
Pour in white wine and cook for a while.
Add chopped onion, garlic, and soaked mushrooms.
Add chopped tomatoes, salt, and pepper; cook slowly for at least 2 hours, adding broth as needed.
In a soup pot, fill halfway with boiling water and add a pinch of salt.
Drop in noodles little by little, stirring carefully; boil for 5 minutes.
Strain noodles and place in a flat dish.
Layer with gravy and grated Parmesan cheese, then repeat with another layer of noodles, gravy, and cheese.
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.
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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,539 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,665 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,076 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, butter, olive, beef, garlic, mushroom, tomato):
- Onionthe original
- Potatofits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Chivefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter, olive, beef, garlic, mushroom, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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