Name: Macaroni
Ingredients: ¼ pound macaroni; 1 teaspoon butter; ⅓ cup milk or cream; 1 tablespoon grated cheese; 1 teaspoon salt

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

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the macaroni in salted water (1 teaspoon salt per quart).
Once tender, drain the macaroni in a colander.
In a separate pot, boil the milk or cream.
Add the butter rolled in flour to the boiling milk and cook for 30 seconds.
Combine the drained macaroni with the milk mixture and add the grated cheese.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

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