Name: Timbales of Macaroni
Ingredients: macaroni; ox-piths; large button mushrooms; crayfish; truffle or small sweetbread; sauce

Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Timbales of Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cut ox-piths into inch-lengths and boil with mushrooms for 3 minutes.
Garnish the dish with the boiled mixture.
Place 8 trimmed crayfish in the center, topped with a large truffle or small sweetbread.
Pour the remaining sauce over the dish and serve.

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.

Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Crayfish + saucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together195 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Crayfish + truffletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together129 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Mushroom + crayfishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).