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Baked Macaroni or Spaghetti

A baked pasta dish with macaroni, cheese, cream sauce, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Macaroni or Spaghetti

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the macaroni according to package instructions and drain.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour, salt, and red pepper.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the cheese until melted.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the macaroni with the cheese sauce in a baking pan.

  2. Top with buttered bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 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 bulk of the dish and gives it a firm, chewy body.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to add rich flavor and a creamy, stretchy texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the macaroni together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the roux and to the buttered crumb topping, which browns in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when baked with butter.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must cook briefly in melted butter and milk must be added gradually while stirring. Adding milk too fast or skipping stirring can leave lumps, and the sauce only thickens properly once it is heated enough to gelatinize the starch.

“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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