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Yellow Macaroni and Cheese Baked with White Parsley Sauce

A baked macaroni and cheese dish topped with a white parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Yellow Macaroni and Cheese Baked with White Parsley Sauce

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

  1. Boil water in a large pot.

  2. Add coarse sea salt to the boiling water.

  3. Add macaroni and cook for 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the macaroni.

  5. Place the drained macaroni in a 3-quart baking dish.

Make the custard and sauce

  1. Mix in the chopped cheese and butter.

  2. Beat the eggs, water, and thickening together.

  3. Pour the beaten mixture over the macaroni.

  4. In a separate pot, boil the milk.

  5. Thicken the milk like a cream sauce.

  6. Add the chopped parsley to the thickened milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the parsley sauce over the macaroni without mixing.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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 and structure of the dish, holding the sauce and custard.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the custard layer and giving it a firmer texture.
Cheese
Melts into the dish, adding richness and savory flavor.
Milk
Forms the cream sauce base, adding moisture and a smooth, creamy texture.
Thickening (flour or cornstarch)
Thickens the liquid so the egg mixture and milk sauce become smooth rather than watery.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cheese blend smoothly and adding flavor.

The step that matters

Pour the parsley sauce over the macaroni without mixing.. Keeping the sauce as a separate layer lets the egg custard set beneath and the top brown during baking, rather than blending into a uniform, looser mixture.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, egg, flour, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, egg, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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