Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Macaroni Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the macaroni in salted water until tender, about 1.5 hours for pipe macaroni and less for smaller types.
Grease a pie dish.
Assemble
Layer macaroni, cheese, and bread crumbs in the dish, adding bits of butter between layers.
Repeat layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with a layer of macaroni, cheese, crumbs, and butter.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,861 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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 the body that holds the cheese together.
- Cheese
- Melts into a creamy sauce that coats the pasta and adds rich flavor.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness and helps the layers brown and feel moist.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp topping that adds texture against the soft pasta.
The step that matters
Boil the macaroni until tender. Pasta cooked only partly will stay firm and chalky after baking, while overcooked pasta turns mushy in the dish. Cooking time depends on the shape, so check the pasta rather than relying on the time alone.
“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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