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To Stew Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with milk, cheese, butter, cayenne pepper, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

To Stew Macaroni

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. Soak macaroni in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Wash the macaroni and place it in tepid water in a saucepan.

  3. Cook until soft, then drain and nearly cover with milk.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Add salt, cayenne pepper, butter, and grated cheese; stir over heat for a few minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish, top with bread crumbs, and brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove from oven as soon as browned and keep hot over the kettle.

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

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish, absorbing milk and cheese as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, helping the macaroni soften and the sauce turn smooth.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding fat, savoury flavour and a creamy, binding texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, smoothing the sauce and carrying flavour.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven, adding texture contrast.

The step that matters

Removing from the oven as soon as browned. Bread crumbs and cheese continue to darken from residual heat, so leaving the dish in too long can scorch the topping and dry the sauce.

“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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