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To Cook Macaroni

A baked macaroni and cheese dish with milk, cheese, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Cook Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Wash the macaroni and place it in a saucepan with cold water and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil and gently boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the water from the saucepan.

  4. Add the skimmed milk to the saucepan.

  5. Bring the milk to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

  6. Once the macaroni is tender, transfer it to a hot dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. For macaroni and cheese, grate the cheese onto a piece of paper.

  2. Grease a dish or tin with butter.

  3. Transfer the cooked macaroni to the greased dish.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and Cayenne pepper to taste.

  5. Stir in some grated cheese.

  6. Sprinkle the rest on top.

  7. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  8. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

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. Cheese + buttertop 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. Cheese + peppertop 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 starchy body of the dish that holds the sauce.
Skimmed milk
Cooks into the liquid that softens the pasta and forms the creamy base.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce for savoury richness and browns on the surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmering the macaroni in milk. Milk can scorch and boil over on the bottom of the pan if heat is too high. Gentle simmering lets the pasta absorb liquid and thicken evenly without sticking or burning.

“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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