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Macaroni, Savoury

A baked macaroni dish flavored with mustard powder, Parmesan cheese, and pepper, topped with oiled butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Macaroni, Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in slightly salted water until tender and water is absorbed.

  2. Mix the mustard powder with the macaroni.

  3. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and cayenne or white pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a dish and sprinkle more Parmesan on top.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until slightly brown.

  3. Pour a little oiled butter on top and serve.

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. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + white peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 starchy, tender body.
Parmesan cheese
Melts into the macaroni and browns on top, adding savory, salty flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown and finish the dish.

The step that matters

Baking until slightly brown. Baking too briefly leaves the cheese topping pale and unmelted, while overbaking can dry the macaroni. Watching for a light golden colour on the Parmesan shows when the top has browned through the Maillard reaction.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, parmesan cheese, butter. 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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