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Macaroni with Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with butter, flour, milk, cheese, and buttered cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Macaroni with Cheese

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 with Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Cook macaroni in boiling, salted water for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain and rinse with cold water to prevent sticking.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a white sauce by melting butter, adding flour and salt, then pouring in milk.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer half the macaroni, sprinkle with cheese, and pour half the sauce over it; repeat the layers.

  2. Cover with buttered cracker crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 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.

  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. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 layers together when baked.
Butter
Enriches the white sauce with fat and flavor, and helps the cracker crumbs brown.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth white sauce that coats the pasta.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and melts into the sauce, making the dish rich and cohesive.

The step that matters

Make the white sauce. Flour must be cooked briefly in the melted butter before the milk is added, and the milk poured in gradually while stirring, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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