Name: Macaroni Au Beurke
Ingredients: 1 cup macaroni; 1 tablespoon salt; 1 tablespoon butter; ¼ cup grated cheese

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 Au Beurke

Ingredients

1 cup macaroni
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup grated cheese

Directions

Cook the macaroni

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add salt.
Add macaroni and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until tender.
Drain the macaroni and place it back in the pot.

Finish and serve

Add butter in the center and sprinkle cheese over the top.
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.

Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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 dish, with a starchy, chewy texture once cooked until tender.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, coating the hot pasta and carrying flavor.
Cheese: Adds savory flavor and melts into the warm pasta for a creamy finish.

“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.