Why it works: Cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the macaroni
Break macaroni into 3-inch pieces and cook in boiling salted water for about 25 minutes until tender.
Drain the macaroni and layer it in a baking dish.
Assemble and bake
Add a layer of cheese and season with salt and pepper.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full.
Barely cover with milk and bake until brown and the milk is absorbed.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,861 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 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
- Macaroni
- Forms the bulk and structure of the dish once cooked until tender.
- Cheese
- Provides fat and flavor, and melts to bind the layers together.
- Milk
- Supplies moisture that is absorbed during baking, keeping the dish creamy.
The step that matters
Barely cover with milk. Too much milk floods the layers and leaves the dish soupy, while too little dries out the pasta. Just enough liquid lets it absorb as it bakes and set into a creamy, browned top.
“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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