Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,566 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓
Macaroni Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the macaroni in good stock until tender.
Remove half of the macaroni and place it in a smaller pot.
Add more stock to the remaining macaroni and boil for an additional hour.
Rub the mixture through a fine cloth until thick.
Combine the thickened liquid with the macaroni in the smaller pot.
Stir in the grated Parmesan cheese and heat without boiling.
Serve in a tureen with a toasted French roll.
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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Parmesan cheese + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,566 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Naples macaroni
- Provides the starch and body that thicken the soup when the mixture is pressed through a cloth.
- Grated parmesan cheese
- Adds salty, savoury flavour and richness, and melts smoothly into the soup when heated gently.
- Boiled cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.
The step that matters
Heat without boiling after adding the Parmesan. Boiling a soup containing cheese can make the cheese separate and turn grainy or stringy, so it should only be heated gently until warm.
“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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