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Stewed Macaroni

A macaroni dish simmered with butter, flour, stock, cream, 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 cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in water until tender, then drain well.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour.

  3. Gradually moisten the mixture with the stock and cream.

  4. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the macaroni, let it boil briefly, and serve hot.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Fat that melts with the flour to start the sauce, adding richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock mixture into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Veal or beef stock
Liquid base that gives the sauce savoury meat flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Macaroni
Starchy pasta that absorbs the sauce and gives the dish its bulk.

The step that matters

Gradually moisten the mixture with the stock and cream. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, preventing lumps. Adding it all at once can leave lumps that are hard to smooth out.

“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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