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Baked Macaroni

A baked pasta dish with macaroni, cheese, butter, flour, milk, and breadcrumbs.

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

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 ↓

Baked Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the spaghetti in water for 20 minutes, then drain and place in cold water.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Add the sweet milk to the butter and flour mixture, cooking until thick.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in the grated cheese until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the macaroni in a buttered dish and pour the cheese mixture over it.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

French spaghetti
Forms the pasta base that gives the dish its body and bite.
Butter
Adds richness and, with flour, forms the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked together with butter.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and creaminess to the sauce and helps it set.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk into the butter and flour. The mixture must be cooked until thick so the flour starches swell and gelatinize. If it is not cooked long enough, the sauce stays thin and tastes of raw flour.

“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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