Name: Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients: ½ pound macaroni; ½ cup water; 4 ounces grated cheese; 1 ounce butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Break the macaroni into small pieces.

Cook

Put the macaroni into a greased pan with the water and cook for 30 minutes.
Transfer the macaroni to another thickly buttered pan.
Add the grated cheese, butter, pepper, and salt.
Cook 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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 body of the dish and absorbs the liquid as it cooks.
Grated cheese: Melts into the pasta to give richness, savoriness, and a creamy texture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Water: Provides the cooking liquid that softens the macaroni.

“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.