Name: Macaroni Au Gratin
Ingredients: ½ lb macaroni; ½ pint Bechamel sauce; 2½ oz cheese (1 oz Parmesan and 1½ oz Gruyere preferred); 1 oz butter; 2 tablespoons buttered crumbs; Pepper; Coarse sea salt

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 Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Boil the macaroni until well cooked.
Thoroughly butter a fireproof gratin dish with ½ oz of butter.
Prepare ½ pint of Bechamel sauce.
Stir 2 oz of grated cheese into the sauce and season with pepper and salt.

Bake and serve

Layer the macaroni in the buttered dish, pour the sauce over it, and sprinkle with the remaining cheese and buttered crumbs.
Place the dish in a pan of water and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot and browned on top.
Serve immediately on a fancy 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.

Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,987 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sauce and butter 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 gives it a chewy, substantial body.
Bechamel sauce: Adds moisture and a creamy binding that coats the macaroni.
Cheese: Melts into the sauce for savoury flavour and forms a browned crust on top.
Butter: Enriches the dish with fat and helps the buttered crumbs brown.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until hot and browned. Setting the dish in a pan of water moderates the oven heat so the custard-like sauce heats gently without curdling or drying out, while the top still browns.

“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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Macaroni Au Gratin