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Macaroni with Beef

A baked macaroni dish with beef, onions, milk, cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni with Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Stew the macaroni and onion in milk until tender.

  2. Sear the beef pieces and season them well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with the macaroni mixture and cover with grated cheese.

  2. Layer the dish with macaroni, beef, and cheese.

  3. Cross the macaroni over the top and dot with butter.

  4. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until light brown.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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 milk, giving it a tender, starchy body.
Milk
Cooks into the macaroni to provide moisture and a creamy texture.
Cheese
Melts into a binding layer and browns on the surface during baking.
Beef pieces
Add savoury meaty flavour and substance, browned by searing before layering.
Onion
Softens while stewing, adding sweetness and aroma to the milk and macaroni.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the top layer and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Sear the beef pieces. Searing over high heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building savoury flavour that a pale, unseared piece would lack. Season well so the flavour carries through the layers.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Asparagusfits less well

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