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Another Wat to Dress Macaroni

A macaroni dish cooked in milk, cream, and Parmesan cheese, finished with butter and browned under a salamander.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Another Wat to Dress Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Simmer the macaroni in the milk for 10 minutes.

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

Make the sauce

  1. Add the cream, Parmesan cheese, butter, and salt to the saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.

Brown and serve

  1. Transfer to a dish and brown it using 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Cream + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the pasta body of the dish, giving it substance for the sauce to coat.
Milk
Cooks the macaroni while adding moisture and a soft, mild dairy base.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce thicken and feel smooth when boiled.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the sauce thicken and brown when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 10 minutes. Boiling reduces the liquid and lets the cream and cheese thicken into a coating sauce. Too little reduction leaves the dish watery, while overcooking can make the dairy separate or turn grainy.

“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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