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Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese

A simple macaroni dish tossed in a butter‑flour sauce with Parmesan cheese and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni as directed.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then stir in the flour until it bubbles.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the boiling water and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Drain the macaroni and add it to the sauce along with the grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Stir until heated through 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with the flour starts the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and helps the sauce turn creamy as it melts.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter. Cooking the flour in butter until it bubbles drives off raw starch taste and lets the flour thicken evenly. Adding the water too early or without stirring can leave lumps or a pasty flavor.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parmesan cheese, flour, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Basilfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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