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Macaroni Milanaise

A creamy pasta dish with macaroni, stock, cream, mushrooms, carrot, onion, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni Milanaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into 3‑inch pieces and wash it.

  2. Place the macaroni in a stewpan with 2 quarts of boiling water and salt.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain the macaroni.

Make the sauce

  1. In a small stewpan, combine butter and flour and beat the mixture to a cream.

  2. Add onion, carrot, pepper, and salt to taste.

  3. Pour in the stock and heat slowly.

  4. When the sauce begins to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Add the cream and strain the sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the macaroni with the sauce and mushrooms.

  2. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

  3. Serve.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the sauce as it cooks.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying its savoury flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a meaty texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Heating the stock slowly and simmering the sauce. Flour thickens only as its starch swells in heated liquid, so heating too fast or boiling hard can cause lumps or scorching on the pan base. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened before the cream is added.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, mushroom, onion, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, mushroom, onion, butter, 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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