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Macaroni Di Lucca

A baked macaroni casserole with butter, milk, mustard, cayenne, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Di Lucca

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into two-inch lengths.

  2. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water for 20 minutes until clear but not broken.

  3. Drain the macaroni and rinse quickly in cold water to prevent sticking.

Layer the dish

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Place a layer of macaroni on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle the macaroni with salt. Drop bits of butter over the macaroni. Sprinkle a slight amount of cayenne pepper over the macaroni. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the macaroni.

  3. Repeat the layers of macaroni, salt, butter, cayenne, and Parmesan cheese, finishing with a top layer of cheese.

Add the milk and bake

  1. In a saucepan, heat the hot milk and melt in the butter, mustard, pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the macaroni in the dish.

  3. Cover the dish. Bake for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the lid and brown the top before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

  5. Parmesan cheese + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pipe macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving it a firm, chewy structure once baked.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury richness and a golden crust.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the dish brown and carry flavour.
Hot milk
Soaks into the macaroni layers, making the dish moist and creamy as it bakes.

The step that matters

Remove the lid and brown the top. Baking covered traps steam and keeps the top pale; uncovering lets dry heat brown the cheese and butter into a golden crust.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parmesan cheese, milk. 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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