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Macaroni in Gravy

A simple macaroni dish simmered in stock and thickened with butter and flour, optionally topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni in Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break and wash the macaroni.

  2. Put the macaroni in a saucepan with the stock.

  3. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Mix the butter and flour together.

  2. Stir the butter‑flour mixture and seasoning into the macaroni.

  3. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes and serve.

  4. Add grated cheese if desired.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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 of the dish and absorbs the stock as it simmers.
Stock
Cooks the pasta and forms the liquid that becomes the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy when mixed with butter.
Butter
Carries the flour so it blends smoothly and adds richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter‑flour mixture. Flour added directly to hot liquid can clump. Mixing it first with butter coats the flour particles so they disperse evenly and thicken the gravy smoothly rather than forming 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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