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Macaroni Soup

A soup made with macaroni, milk, water, onion, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the macaroni in water for two hours.

  2. Add the soaked macaroni to a pot with boiling milk and water.

  3. Include the chopped onion, salt, pepper, and stale bread crumbs.

Make the soup

  1. Boil gently, then pass the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Return the strained soup to the heat without boiling.

  3. Stir in the cream (or milk), butter, peppercorns, and nutmeg.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of the soup and thickens it as it cooks and breaks down.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the soup for a smoother, fuller texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Cream (or milk)
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture when stirred in off the boil.

The step that matters

Return the strained soup to the heat without boiling.. Once the cream or milk and butter go in, boiling can cause dairy to curdle or separate and leave the soup grainy. Gentle heat keeps it smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper, bread, cream, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, bread, cream, butter, nutmeg. 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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