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Savory Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with butter, milk, eggs, cream, Parmesan, mustard, spices, and topped with Parmesan and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Savory Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Blanch the macaroni in boiling water with salt until cold, then drain.

  2. In an enamelled saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the macaroni until absorbed.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the milk and simmer gently for about 1.5 hours until tender.

  2. Stir in mustard powder, white pepper, grated nutmeg, cayenne, grated Parmesan, and beaten eggs mixed with thick cream.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a dish, top with grated Parmesan and small pieces of butter.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 12 to 15 minutes until pale brown.

  3. Serve very hot.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Naples macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives the gratin its body once it softens in the milk.
Milk
Cooks down with the pasta to form the creamy sauce that coats it.
Butter
Enriches the dish with fat, adding richness and flavour to the pasta and topping.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the sauce and giving the gratin a custardy structure.
Thick cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the sauce richer and smoother.

The step that matters

Simmering the macaroni in milk. Milk scorches easily on direct heat, and the starch can stick to the pan. Simmering gently and stirring keeps the milk from catching while the pasta softens and thickens the sauce.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, mustard, nutmeg, pepper, parmesan cheese, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, mustard, nutmeg, pepper, parmesan cheese, egg. 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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