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Macaroni

A macaroni dish cooked with butter, gravy, tomato sauce, cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Blanch the macaroni and drain it.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the macaroni and butter, stirring well to coat.

  3. Add the gravy, tomato sauce, and grated cheese, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Cook on low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, and serve warm.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 carries the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps coat the macaroni so it does not stick.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding savoriness and a creamy, stringy texture.
Tomato sauce
Supplies moisture and acidity that balance the richness of the cheese and butter.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat with occasional stirring. Low heat melts the cheese gently into the sauce. High heat can make cheese turn grainy or oily and cause the sauce to scorch on the pan bottom.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tomato, sauce, cheese, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, sauce, cheese, pepper. 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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