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Macaroni a LA Creme

Macaroni à la Crème is a creamy macaroni dish with butter, Parmesan, Gruyère, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and gruyere cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Macaroni a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, then drain it.

Make the dish

  1. In a stewpan, combine the macaroni with butter, cheeses, cream, pepper, and salt.

  2. Place the stewpan over low heat, stirring gently until well mixed and hot.

  3. Shake the stewpan briefly to create fibrous cheese strands.

  4. Serve immediately in a dish without baking.

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. Parmesan cheese + gruyere cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

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

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the sauce thicken as it melts.
Gruyere cheese
Melts into a stretchy, flavorful sauce that binds the pasta.
Cream
Provides moisture and body, forming the creamy sauce with the cheese.

The step that matters

Shake the stewpan briefly to create fibrous cheese strands.. Gentle heat keeps the cheese and cream emulsified; overheating or over-stirring can cause the cheese to turn grainy or greasy. A brief shake helps the melted cheese form stringy strands instead of a split sauce.

“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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