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Macaroni in Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with a cheese sauce made from butter, flour, milk, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 in Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until tender, then drain.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper, cooking for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese until melted.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the cheese sauce with the macaroni and mix well.

  2. Pour into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20-25 minutes until golden.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 and firm, chewy structure of the dish.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the smooth, pourable body of the sauce.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to add rich flavour and creamy texture.
Butter
Carries fat for flavour and helps form the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling with the fat and liquid into a roux.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, preventing lumps and producing a smooth, thickened sauce.

“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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