Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni with Eggs

A baked macaroni dish mixed with butter, eggs, cheese, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into short bits.

  2. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni well and place it in a deep dish.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. Pour the drawn butter over the macaroni, mixed with beaten eggs, grated cheese, salt, and pepper.

  2. Loosen the macaroni to allow the sauce to penetrate.

  3. Mix in more grated cheese.

  4. Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until the sauce thickens and the top is slightly brown.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken the sauce as they bake, binding it around the macaroni.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the macaroni and carrying the sauce through it.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the topping brown lightly in the oven.
Macaroni
Forms the body of the dish, soaking up the butter and egg mixture.

The step that matters

Loosen the macaroni before baking. Separating the drained pasta lets the butter and egg mixture reach between the pieces. Packed, clumped macaroni stays dry in places and bakes unevenly.

“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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes