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Macaroni, Au Gratin

A baked macaroni dish with Parmesan, butter, béchamel, croutons, breadcrumbs, and melted butter 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 ↓

Macaroni, Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until done, then cut it into three-inch lengths.

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the macaroni, grated Parmesan cheese, fresh butter, béchamel sauce, pepper, and salt in a stewpan.

  2. Toss the mixture over low heat until well mixed.

Bake and serve

  1. Arrange fried croutons around the bottom of a baking dish and pile the macaroni mixture in the center.

  2. Sprinkle the top with equal parts bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Drizzle melted butter over the macaroni.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is bright yellow 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps form a golden, browned crust on top.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mixture a smooth, silky texture.
Béchamel sauce
Coats the macaroni and binds it into a creamy, moist mixture.
Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish, providing its body and chewy structure.

The step that matters

Toss the mixture over low heat. Gentle heat lets the cheese and sauce coat the pasta evenly without melting the cheese into greasy clumps or scorching the bottom of the pan.

“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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