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Another Way to Dress Macaroni

A macaroni dish cooked with gravy, butter, onion, cream, and cheese, finished under a broiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Another Way to Dress Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Simmer the macaroni with salt, gravy, and water until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni and place it in a saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add butter, onion, and cream to the macaroni.

  2. Heat half of the cheese with the macaroni. Mix well.

Finish and brown

  1. Dish it out.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

  3. Brown it under a salamander or broiler.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk and body of the dish as the starch that the sauce clings to.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to add richness, savoury flavour and stretch when hot.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
Butter
Contributes fat and flavour, helping the sauce feel rich and smooth.
Gravy
Adds savoury depth and salt to the liquid the macaroni cooks in.

The step that matters

Brown it under a salamander or broiler. The top cheese can burn quickly under intense direct heat. Watch closely so it browns through the Maillard reaction rather than scorching, and remove it as soon as it is golden.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Mustardfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, cheese. 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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