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Noodles with Cheese

A baked noodle dish with a butter‑flour sauce, milk, cheese, and breadcrumb topping.

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

Noodles 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.

Prepare the noodles

  1. Cook the noodles in boiling salted water until tender, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and stir in the flour and salt.

  2. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

  3. Add the grated cheese and cooked noodles to the sauce, mixing well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish or patty cup.

  2. Cover with breadcrumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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 + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour form a smooth roux base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that clings to the noodles.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the flour gelatinizes.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and creamy texture to the sauce.
Noodles
Provide the bulk and structure of the dish, absorbing sauce as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce as the milk is added. Adding hot milk gradually while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed. Lumps form if the liquid goes in too fast, and the sauce will not thicken smoothly.

“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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