Name: Macaroni Pie
Ingredients: ¼ pound macaroni; 1 cup milk; 1 large onion; Butter; Grated cheese; Tender beefsteak, chicken, or ham; Bread crumbs

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

Boil the macaroni in milk with the onion until tender.

Assemble and bake

In a baking dish, layer some macaroni, bits of butter, and grated cheese.
Add a layer of tender beefsteak, chicken, or ham.
Sprinkle a few bread crumbs on top.
Finish with another layer of macaroni, grated cheese, and bits of butter.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) until heated through.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 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 of the pie and absorbs milk as it softens, giving it body.
Milk: Cooks with the macaroni to soften it and form a creamy, moist base.
Grated cheese: Melts into the layers, adding richness and binding the macaroni together.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the layers taste rounded and moist.
Tender beefsteak, chicken, or ham: Adds savoury meat flavour and substance between the macaroni layers.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, cheese, chicken, bread):

Potatofits better
Tomatofits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, cheese, chicken, bread. 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.