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Baked Macaroni and Cheese

A baked pasta dish with macaroni, cheese, milk, eggs, butter, and seasonings.

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

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Break the macaroni into one-inch pieces and boil in cold water with a little salt for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. Butter a deep dish well.

Assemble

  1. Layer macaroni, grated cheese, salt, pepper, and butter until the dish is full.

  2. Cover the layers with milk.

  3. Beat the eggs in the milk.

  4. Pour the beaten eggs over the dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 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. 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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

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 as it holds the baked custard together.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the milk and cheese into a sliceable custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard base that softens the pasta and sets with the eggs.
Grated cheese
Adds rich, savory flavor and fat, and melts into the custard as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps keep the dish from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs in the milk. Eggs must be fully beaten into the milk so they distribute evenly; unevenly mixed egg will set in clumps rather than a smooth, uniform custard.

“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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