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Maccaroni Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, egg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Maccaroni Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in milk until tender.

  2. Transfer the macaroni to a baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the macaroni.

  2. Beat the egg and pour it over the cheese.

  3. Cut the butter into small pieces and place them on top.

  4. Bake in the oven or brown over a fire.

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).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 gives it a tender, starchy body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the dish, adding richness and a savory, binding sauce.
Egg
Sets when heated, helping bind the dish and giving it a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown as it melts.

The step that matters

Bake in the oven or brown over a fire. Heat must be high enough to set the beaten egg and melt the cheese without drying out the macaroni. Overheating can make the egg curdle or the top scorch before the centre is set.

“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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