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Macaroni À LA Heine

A baked macaroni dish with butter, cheese, cream, cayenne pepper, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Macaroni À LA Heine

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.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni according to package instructions until al dente.

  2. Drain the macaroni well and place it in a deep dish.

Assemble

  1. Layer the macaroni with grated cheese and bits of butter.

  2. Pour cream over the top and sprinkle with cayenne pepper.

  3. Cover with a layer of breadcrumbs mixed with grated cheese, moisten with clarified butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Parmesan cheese + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  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
Forms the bulk of the dish and holds the sauce-like layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and clarified butter helps the topping brown.
Parmesan cheese
Melts into the layers for savoury flavour and browns on the crust.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness that softens the layers as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking until golden brown develops flavour through browning, but too long can dry the cream and cheese. Watch colour rather than only the clock.

“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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