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Another Way to Dress Macaroni

A macaroni dish cooked with milk, water, butter, and thick cream, optionally flavored with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Way to Dress Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the milk and water in a pot.

  2. Add the macaroni, salt, and butter.

  3. Simmer until tender.

  4. Drain the water from the macaroni.

Finish the sauce

  1. Mix in the thick cream.

  2. Heat until hot.

  3. If desired, add grated nutmeg 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Provides the starchy body of the dish, softening as it simmers in the liquid.
Milk
Supplies the liquid and milk solids that make the base creamy and lightly sweet.
Thick cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that coats the pasta.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, enriching the sauce and helping it feel silky.

The step that matters

Heat until hot, without boiling. Once the cream is in, high heat can scorch the milk solids on the pot bottom and cause the dairy to separate or turn grainy. Gentle heat keeps 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.

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