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Macaroni Soup

A simple soup made with macaroni, stock, butter, flour, 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 flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the macaroni. Cook until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Cut the cooked macaroni into short lengths.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pot, bring the stock to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, knead together the flour and butter until smooth.

  3. Add the flour and butter mixture to the boiling stock, stirring until well combined.

  4. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Add the macaroni to the soup and cook for an additional 5 minutes before serving.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Adds body and bulk, giving the soup its substance and chewy texture.
Flour
Thickens the stock as it cooks, giving the soup a fuller body.
Butter
Enriches the thickening paste and adds richness and flavor to the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its meaty flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture to the boiling stock. Flour clumps if dropped into liquid unevenly. Kneading it smooth with butter first and stirring it in well keeps the thickener dispersed so the soup thickens evenly without lumps.

“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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