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Macaroni a L'italienne

Macaroni served with a cheese and cream sauce seasoned with salt, white pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Macaroni a L'italienne

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break and wash the macaroni.

  2. Boil the macaroni rapidly in 2 quarts of water for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

  2. Mix the butter and flour together.

  3. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Add salt, white pepper, cayenne, cream, and cheese to the sauce.

Serve

  1. Drain the macaroni.

  2. Place the drained macaroni on a serving dish.

  3. Pour the sauce over the macaroni.

  4. Serve immediately.

  5. If desired, stir the mustard into the sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 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

Macaroni
Forms the body of the dish and holds the sauce in its hollow tubes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens when combined with flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel, and helps the flour blend smoothly.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding savory flavour and a creamy, stringy texture.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the sauce richer and smoother.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour mixture into the boiling milk.. Flour starch must be dispersed evenly before it thickens. Stirring steadily as the mixture heats prevents lumps and gives a smooth, even sauce.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, butter, flour, white pepper, cheese):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, butter, flour, white pepper, cheese. 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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