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Macaroni a L’ltalienne

A baked macaroni dish with cheese sauce, butter, flour, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 a L’ltalienne

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 according to package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  2. Gradually whisk in the milk, cooking until the sauce thickens.

  3. Add the grated cheese, stirring until melted and smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the macaroni with the cheese sauce, season with salt and pepper, and mix well.

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

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. Cheese + milktop 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 of the dish and gives it a firm, pasta-based structure.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to add rich flavour and a creamy, stretchy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Butter
Provides fat for flavour and helps form the roux with the flour.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in butter to form a roux.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce gradually. Adding milk slowly while whisking keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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