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Macaroni in Cheese Shell

A baked dish of boiled macaroni served in a cheese shell with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce.

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 ↓

Macaroni in Cheese Shell

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

  1. Boil macaroni in salted water until tender, then drain and rinse with cold water.

  2. Cut the blanched macaroni into pieces no longer than ½ inch.

  3. Prepare a cheese shell by thoroughly scooping out the cheese.

  4. Place the shell on waxed paper in a baking pan.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and mix in flour, then add milk and stir until boiling.

  2. Mix in the cold macaroni and heat through, then add salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the mixture into the cheese shell and cover with greased paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

  2. Carefully lift the shell onto a plate and serve.

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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving it body and a chewy, substantial texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that holds the macaroni together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir the white sauce until it boils. Flour must be heated in the melted butter and milk brought to a boil so starch swells and thickens the sauce. Undercooked sauce stays thin and may taste of raw flour, and the filling will not hold its shape in the shell.

“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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