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Macaroni Au Gratin

A baked macaroni dish with broth, butter, cheese, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Macaroni Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into 1‑inch lengths.

  2. Make a weak broth by diluting the soup with hot water and straining it.

  3. Bring the broth to a boil, season well, and add the macaroni.

  4. Cook until tender but not broken, then drain off the liquid.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the hot macaroni in a baking dish and stir in a good piece of butter.

  2. Sift a mixture of grated cheese and fine bread crumbs over the top.

  3. Set the dish on the upper rack of the oven to 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 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 body of the dish and absorbs the seasoned broth as it cooks.
Remains of yesterday's soup
Diluted into a weak broth, it gives the macaroni its savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the macaroni and softening the flavour.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Fine bread crumbs
Toast in the oven to form a crisp, browned topping over the macaroni.

The step that matters

Cook until tender but not broken. Macaroni keeps cooking in its own heat after draining and in the oven, so stopping when it is just tender keeps it from turning mushy or splitting.

“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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