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Milk Sauce for Maccaroni

A baked macaroni dish with a creamy milk sauce, cheese, and bread crumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Milk Sauce for Maccaroni

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 white sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a stew pan until it bubbles.

  2. Add the flour and salt, then gradually stir in the heated milk.

  3. Cook until the sauce thickens, then remove from heat and beat until smooth.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into 2-inch pieces and cook in boiling salted water until tender, then drain and rinse with cold water.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, alternate layers of macaroni and white sauce mixed with ½ cup cheese.

  2. Mix the remaining cheese with stale bread crumbs and melted butter, then sprinkle over the top.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes or until browned.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 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 and body of the casserole, holding its shape between the sauce layers.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce and, melted, helps the crumb topping brown and crisp.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that binds the layers together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it creaminess and moisture.
Cheese
Adds rich savoury flavour and melts into the sauce for a creamy texture.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the white sauce until it thickens. Flour must be cooked long enough to thicken the milk fully; undercooked sauce stays thin and tastes raw. Beating it smooth off the heat prevents lumps from forming.

“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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