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Boiled Macaroni

A boiled macaroni dish served with a cream and butter sauce and topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Boiled Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Bring 3 pints of salted water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Break the macaroni into short lengths and add to the boiling water.

  3. Cook uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes until tender, then drain.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Heat 1 cup of cream in a saucepan.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 teaspoon of flour until smooth, then stir into the cream.

  3. Season the mixture and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the drained macaroni to the cream sauce and heat thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Pour into a deep dish and top with grated cheese, or serve cheese separately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 body of the dish, cooked until tender enough to absorb the sauce.
Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, fluid base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and combines with flour to thicken the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce when cooked with the butter.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and a topping, melting into the dish when served.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and flour into the cream. Stir the butter and flour into a smooth paste before adding it to the cream, so lumps do not form. Flour needs to be fully dispersed in the hot liquid to thicken evenly.

“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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