Name: Macaroni Au Maigre
Ingredients: 4 ounces macaroni; 1 pint milk; baked flour (white); cinnamon or vanilla (to taste); sugar or saccharin (if desired); 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan (optional); small pat of butter (optional)

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Au Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the macaroni in water for 10 minutes.
Drain the macaroni and place it in a stewpan with the milk.
Simmer until the macaroni is tender.
If any milk remains, thicken it with baked flour.
Flavor with cinnamon or vanilla, and sweeten if desired.
For a savory version, stir in Parmesan and butter during the last part of simmering.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 body of the dish and absorbs the milk as it simmers.
Milk: Cooks the pasta and forms the creamy liquid that thickens the dish.
Baked flour (white): Thickens any remaining milk into a looser, creamier sauce.
Parmesan: Adds savory flavor and salty depth in the optional savory version.

“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.