Why it works: Milk and butter 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 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
Boil macaroni in salted water for 30 minutes.
Grate the cheese.
Assemble and bake
Layer macaroni and cheese in a baking dish, with cheese on top.
Cover with milk and dot with butter.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until light brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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.
- Cheese
- Provides richness and flavor, and melts to bind the dish together.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that turns into a creamy sauce as the dish bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness and helps the top brown.
The step that matters
Bake until light brown. Baking long enough lets the milk thicken and the cheese melt into a creamy sauce, and the surface browns through the Maillard reaction. Stopping too early leaves the dish soupy and pale.
“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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