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Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into small pieces.

  2. In a double boiler, pour the boiling water over the macaroni and add the salt.

  3. Boil for one hour, then pour off the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the cold milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Season with butter, pepper, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a baking dish in layers, alternating with grated cheese.

  2. Place in the oven and bake until browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, giving it body once baked.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, forming the base of the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the milk and adds richness and savory flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. The top needs enough time in the oven to brown, which develops savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Stop too early and the dish stays pale and bland on 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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