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Macaroni a LA Royale

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 LA Royale

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 pasta

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until al dente.

  2. Drain the macaroni and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

  4. Add cheese, salt, and pepper to the sauce, stirring until the cheese melts.

Assemble and bake

  1. Combine the macaroni with the cheese sauce and mix well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 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. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Provides the bulk and starchy body that the sauce coats and holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and forms the base of the roux that thickens the sauce.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to give a creamy texture and savoury flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid that the roux thickens into a smooth, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Add the milk gradually while stirring constantly. Flour starch thickens the sauce as it heats in liquid. Adding milk slowly and stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth sauce.

“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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