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Macaroni with Eggs

A simple dish of boiled macaroni mixed with eggs, butter, milk, mushrooms, 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 milk 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 with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter and stir until melted.

  3. Beat the eggs well and add them to the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir in the macaroni, mushrooms, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook over a pan of boiling water for about 8 minutes.

  3. Serve with hot toasted crackers.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the milk and butter mixture into a soft, binding custard.
Macaroni
Provides the bulk and body of the dish, holding the egg mixture together as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mixture a smoother, silkier texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into, keeping the dish moist.
Canned mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and a soft, tender bite throughout the dish.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water gently. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and turn grainy or curdled if overheated. Keeping the pan over simmering water, not direct flame, gives a tender, even texture.

“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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