Name: Another Way to Dress Macaroni
Ingredients: 8 ounces macaroni; 2 cups milk; 2 ounces salt butter; 1 cup grated cheese; ½ cup sifted bread crumbs; 2 teaspoons butter (for topping)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Way to Dress Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

Simmer the macaroni in milk until tender.
Mix in the salt butter.

Assemble and brown

Layer grated cheese in the bottom of a baking dish.
Add a layer of macaroni, then more cheese, and finish with macaroni.
Top with sifted bread crumbs and small bits of butter.
Brown in a Dutch oven or under a salamander.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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 structure of the casserole.
Milk: Cooks the pasta and becomes the creamy sauce base.
Salt butter: Adds fat and richness to the sauce.
Grated cheese: Melts into the sauce, adding flavor and savoriness.
Bread crumbs: Forms a crisp, browned topping.

The step that matters

Simmer the macaroni in milk until tender. Milk scorches and sticks to the bottom of the pan if left over high heat without stirring, so keep the heat low and stir to keep the sauce smooth.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Macaroni and Cheese102 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Another Way to Dress Macaroni