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Dessert

Chetse and Macaroni Tartlets

A baked tartlet filled with macaroni, cheese, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,655 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chetse and Macaroni Tartlets

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 filling

  1. Boil the macaroni in just enough water to absorb it until soft.

  2. Cut the macaroni into tiny pieces.

  3. Mix the macaroni with grated cheese, salt, cayenne, and bind with cream or cheese sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Line tartlet pans with cheese pastry.

  2. Fill the pans with the mixture and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives it a firm, bite-sized texture once cut and softened.
Finely grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and, as it melts, helps bind the filling together.
Cream or cheese sauce
Supplies moisture and binds the macaroni and cheese so the filling holds its shape.
Cheese pastry
Forms the crisp, browning shell that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Binding the filling with cream or cheese sauce. Too little liquid leaves the filling dry and crumbly, while too much makes the tartlets soggy. The macaroni should be moist enough to hold together when pressed into the pastry.

“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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