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Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese

A simple macaroni dish cooked with cream, butter, and toasted Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, then drain it in a sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the macaroni in a frying pan with the cream and butter.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a plate and sprinkle with toasted Parmesan cheese.

  2. Serve immediately on a warm plate to prevent cooling.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 dish and carries the sauce.
Good cream
Adds moisture and richness, thickening lightly as it reduces over heat.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the sauce cling to the pasta.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and a toasted aroma on top.

The step that matters

Serve immediately on a warm plate. Cream-based sauces thicken and cool quickly as they sit, so serving hot on a warm plate keeps the texture smooth and the dish from going stiff or greasy.

“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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