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Boiled Macaroni

A dish of boiled macaroni cooked in milk, butter, and cream, topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Boiled Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over ½ pound of macaroni and let it stand for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the macaroni and place it in a custard kettle with enough boiling milk to cover.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook until tender, then drain again.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teacup of cream, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Grate cheese over the top and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 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. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 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 body of the dish and becomes tender as it cooks in the milk.
Milk
Cooks the pasta and forms the creamy liquid that coats it.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished dish.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the dish a thicker, silkier texture.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and a golden, melted finish when grated on top.

The step that matters

Cooking the macaroni in boiling milk until tender. Milk can scorch or boil over on the bottom of a kettle if heat is too high or it is not stirred. Cooking gently keeps the milk from catching while the pasta softens and absorbs liquid.

“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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