Why it works: Cheese and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,987 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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 the macaroni
Break macaroni into 1‑inch pieces.
Cook macaroni in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender.
Drain macaroni in a colander.
Make the cheese sauce
In a separate pot, make the white sauce and add the grated cheese.
Combine the macaroni with the cheese sauce and pour into a buttered baking dish.
Bake
Top with buttered crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until 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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Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,987 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Macaroni
- Provides the starchy bulk and structure that holds the sauce in the finished dish.
- Grated cheese
- Melts into the white sauce to add richness, flavor, and a creamy texture.
- White sauce
- Forms the creamy base that coats the pasta and keeps the dish moist.
The step that matters
Bake until brown. Baking until the top turns golden browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavor and color, while the sauce sets around the pasta.
“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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