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Maccaroni a LA Milanaise

Contains raw egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,955 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

  1. Boil the maccaroni until tender, then drain and keep hot in its pan.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour to form a paste.

  3. Gradually pour in the hot chicken broth while stirring until thickened.

  4. Add the grated cheese, mustard, and salt, stirring until creamy.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the cream or beaten egg yolks.

  6. Combine the sauce with the hot maccaroni and serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,243 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,805 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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

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

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Chiveabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, butter, flour, cheese, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

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