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Macaroni Rarebit

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, eggs, and butter, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the cold boiled macaroni and stir to combine.

  3. Mix in the grated cheese and beaten eggs, then dust with pepper.

  4. Cook until the mixture is set, then serve on toast.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the sauce and gives the rarebit its rich, savoury flavour and body.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the macaroni and cheese into a spoonable, sliceable mass.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and a starchy, chewy texture that holds the mixture together.
Butter
Fat that coats the macaroni and keeps the mixture from sticking as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture is set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Stop too early and the mixture stays runny; cook too long and the eggs turn grainy and dry 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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