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Macaroni Au Gratin

A baked macaroni dish with butter, cheese, milk, seasoning, nutmeg, and breadcrumbs.

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 ↓

Macaroni Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in the milk until tender.

Assemble the dish

  1. Pour off the milk and mix the macaroni with seasoning, 8 ounces of grated cheese, and 4 ounces of butter in a stewpan.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a deep or shallow pie dish.

  3. Grate a little nutmeg over the top and lightly cover with breadcrumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned and serve immediately.

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. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, holding the sauce and cheese.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cheese coat the pasta smoothly.
Grated cheese
Melts into a savoury sauce and browns on the surface.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the pasta.

The step that matters

Bake until just browned. A hot oven browns the breadcrumbs and melts the cheese quickly. Overbaking dries the pasta and can cause the butter to separate from the cheese, leaving the dish greasy and tough.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cheese, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Pepperfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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