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Macaroni in Gravy

A simple dish of macaroni simmered in stock and thickened with butter and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the macaroni.

  2. Wash the macaroni.

Make the gravy

  1. Put the macaroni in a saucepan with the stock and cover the saucepan.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix the butter and flour together, then stir the butter-flour mixture and seasoning into the macaroni.

  4. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve.

  2. Add grated cheese if desired.

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).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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 body of the dish and absorbs stock as it simmers, softening into the gravy.
Stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the pasta and forms the savory base of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy when mixed with butter and stirred in.
Butter
Combines with flour to form a roux that adds richness and smooths the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter-flour mixture into the macaroni. Flour clumps if dropped in raw without being blended with fat first. Mixing it with butter and stirring it through the hot liquid helps it disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens smoothly instead of turning lumpy.

“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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