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Macaroni Au Maigre

A simple macaroni dish cooked in milk and thickened with flour, flavored with cinnamon or vanilla, optionally sweetened or made savory.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the macaroni and place it in a stewpan with the milk.

  3. Simmer until the macaroni is tender.

  4. If any milk remains, thicken it with baked flour.

  5. Flavor with cinnamon or vanilla, and sweeten if desired.

  6. For a savory version, stir in grated 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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 pudding and softens as it simmers in the milk.
Milk
Cooks down around the pasta to create the creamy, pudding-like liquid.
Baked flour (white)
Thickens any remaining milk so the pudding sets to a looser, creamier consistency.

The step that matters

Simmering until the macaroni is tender. Milk scorches easily on the bottom of a pan, so low heat and gentle stirring prevent sticking. Cooking until the pasta is fully tender ensures it absorbs liquid and softens throughout.

“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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