Skip to main content
Main

Another Way to Dress Macaroni

A creamy macaroni dish with butter, onion, gravy, cream, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Way to Dress Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Simmer the macaroni with salt, gravy, and water until tender.

  2. Strain the macaroni and place it in a saucepan with butter, onion, and cream.

Combine and finish

  1. Grate half the cheese and heat it with the macaroni.

  2. Dish it out and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

  3. Brown it under a salamander or broiler.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 its body.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce for richness and flavor, and browns on top.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and body, making the sauce smooth and rich.
Gravy
Adds savory depth to the pasta as it simmers.

The step that matters

Brown it under a salamander or broiler. Cheese browns quickly under high heat and can burn before the surface is golden. Watch closely so the top browns without the cheese scorching or the sauce drying out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Mustardfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

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

More macaroni and cheese recipes

Baked 52Croquettes 10Timbale 8Casserole 6Soup 5with Tomato Sauce 3 See all 313 →

You might also like

Cheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes