Name: Macaroni Boiled
Ingredients: 1 pint macaroni; 1 pint milk; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon butter; Grated cheese (for topping)

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

Break up and wash 1 pint of macaroni, then place it in a shallow basin and cover with cold water.
Set the basin into another basin and place it on the fire.

Cook

After 15 minutes, add 1 pint of milk and 1 teaspoon of salt.
Let it cook for 10 more minutes, then add 1 tablespoon of butter and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve leftovers

For leftovers, place macaroni in a buttered shallow dish, top with grated cheese, and brown in the oven.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 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 body of the dish, softening as it cooks in the liquid.
Milk: Cooks into the pasta to provide the creamy, moist sauce base.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished dish.
Grated cheese: Melts and browns on top when baked, adding flavour and a golden crust.

“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.