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Macaroni Florentine

A simple macaroni dish cooked in broth, cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter 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 Florentine

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil water in a pot and add salt.

  2. Immerse the ends of the macaroni in boiling water without breaking it, coiling it down as it softens.

  3. Boil steadily for 30 minutes or until tender.

  4. Drain the water and add gravy or broth.

  5. Simmer until the macaroni absorbs all the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Add grated cheese and butter, shaking the pan over heat until melted and mixed.

  2. Serve on a hot dish.

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. Cheese + buttertop 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 dish and carries the sauce and cheese.
Gravy or broth
Is absorbed by the pasta, adding moisture and savory flavor.
Grated cheese
Melts into the hot pasta, adding richness and a binding texture.
Butter
Melts into the pasta, adding fat, smoothness and flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer until the liquid is absorbed. Simmering the macaroni in the gravy or broth lets the starch and liquid cook together. Stopping too early leaves a watery dish, while going too long can make the pasta mushy and dry.

“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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