Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Macaroni with Cheese
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.
Cook the macaroni
Break the macaroni into 3-inch pieces.
Add the macaroni to boiling salted water.
Boil for 20 minutes or until soft.
Drain the macaroni.
Rinse with cold water.
Cut the macaroni into 1-inch pieces.
Place the macaroni in a shallow baking dish.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, melt the butter.
Stir in the flour.
Gradually add the hot milk to make a white sauce.
Add salt to the sauce.
Pour the sauce over the macaroni.
Bake and serve
Mix the cracker crumbs with melted butter.
Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top.
If using cheese, mix half with the macaroni and the rest with the crumbs.
Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) until the crumbs are brown.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 gives it a tender, pasta-based body after boiling.
- Butter
- Enriches the white sauce and the crumb topping, adding fat, flavour and browning.
- Flour
- Thickens the melted butter and hot milk into a smooth white sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, which coats the macaroni.
- Cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned topping when baked with melted butter.
- Cheese
- Adds savoury flavour and richness to the macaroni (optional).
The step that matters
Add the hot milk gradually to the butter and flour. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.
“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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