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Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with milk, veal broth, butter, cheese, egg yolk, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil macaroni in milk and veal broth until tender.

  2. Drain and place in a dish with bits of butter and grated cheese.

  3. Grate more cheese on top and add a little more butter.

  4. Alternatively, simmer macaroni in broth with mace and salt until tender.

Make the topping and bake

  1. Mix egg yolk with cream and heat without boiling, then pour over macaroni.

  2. Grate cheese on top and cover with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Pour warm butter over crumbs and roast in a Dutch oven until browned.

  4. Bake in a Dutch oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes, ensuring the top doesn't harden.

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. Cheese + creamtop 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 bulk of the dish and holds the sauce and cheese together.
Milk
Cooks into the macaroni and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Egg yolk
Thickens the cream mixture gently, giving the sauce a smooth, rich body.
Cheese
Melts into a creamy layer and browns on top for savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens at gentle heat but scrambles if it boils, leaving a grainy sauce instead of a smooth, custard-like coating over the macaroni.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, veal, butter, cheese, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, veal, butter, cheese, egg, cream. 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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