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Macaroni and Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with white sauce, grated cheese, and buttered breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Macaroni and Cheese

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 and Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender.

  2. Butter a baking dish.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Make the white sauce and stir in the grated cheese.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cooked macaroni in the baking dish and pour the cheese sauce over it.

  2. Moisten the bread crumbs with melted butter and spread them on top of the macaroni.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the crumbs are brown.

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.

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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 and structure of the dish, holding the sauce in place.
White sauce
Provides a smooth, creamy base that coats the pasta and keeps it moist.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavour and, melted into the sauce, a creamy, stretchy texture.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumbs brown and crisp when melted over them.

The step that matters

Bake until the crumbs are brown. Baking long enough browns the buttered crumbs through Maillard browning, giving flavour and crunch. Stopping early leaves a pale, soft topping, while overbaking can dry the sauce.

“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.

More macaroni and cheese recipes

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