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Macaroni Au Beurre

A simple pasta dish of macaroni cooked with butter and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Beurre

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the salt.

  2. Add the macaroni and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until al dente.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the macaroni and return it to the pot.

  2. Add the butter to the center and sprinkle the cheese over the top.

  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. 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 and gives it a firm, chewy bite when cooked al dente.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky coating on the hot pasta.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and melts slightly into the hot pasta for a creamy finish.

The step that matters

Cook the macaroni until al dente. Pasta keeps cooking from residual heat after draining, so pulling it at the right point keeps it firm. Overcooked macaroni turns soft and mushy, and it cannot be firmed up again.

“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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