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Soup

Soupe Au Macaroni

A creamy soup made with macaroni, milk, roux, curry powder, and grated Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Soupe Au Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted boiling water for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain the macaroni and add it to the boiling milk; cook for 10 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Blend some of the boiling milk with the roux and curry powder; stir this mixture into the soup.

  2. Add the cheeses and boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then 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. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Provides the bulk and body of the soup as the starch that the milk cooks around.
White roux
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes creamy rather than watery.
Gruyère cheese
Melts into the soup to add rich, savoury flavour and a silky texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury depth and helps give the soup a fuller flavour.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the macaroni cooks in and the roux thickens.

The step that matters

Stirring the roux mixture into the soup. Blending the roux with hot milk first helps it disperse without lumps. Adding it directly to the soup can clump the starch, leaving an uneven, grainy texture.

“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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