Name: Macaroni Pie
Ingredients: 2 cups macaroni; 1 cup grated ham; 4 tablespoons butter; 1 cup cooked wild duck, birds, or squirrels, shredded; 1 cup gravy; 1 cup cream; Salt and pepper to taste; Puff pastry for topping

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Pie

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

Cook the macaroni until tender.
Layer half of the macaroni in a baking dish.

Assemble

Add grated ham and bits of butter on top.
Layer the shredded wild duck, birds, or squirrels over the ham.
Pour the gravy and add more bits of butter.
Top with the remaining macaroni.
Season the cream with salt and pepper, then pour it over the layers.

Bake

Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the bulk and structure of the pie, holding the layers together when sliced.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the layers and helping the top brown.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, softening the pasta and binding the layers as it cooks.
Gravy: Adds moisture and savoury depth, keeping the layers from drying out in the oven.
Puff pastry: Forms a flaky topping that browns in the oven and seals in the filling.

“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.