Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the macaroni
Break the macaroni into pieces and add it to a pot of boiling salted water.
Boil uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes until tender, stirring occasionally.
Drain the water from the macaroni.
Grate the cheese.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, make a white sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, and gradually whisking in the milk until smooth.
Stir in the macaroni, seasonings, and most of the cheese, reserving about 1 tablespoon.
If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a greased pie dish, sprinkle the reserved cheese on top, and bake until browned.
Serve very hot.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,805 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 body of the dish, giving it bulk and a tender bite.
- Cheese
- Provides rich flavour and melts into the sauce, with the reserved portion browning on top.
- Butter or dripping
- Fat that starts the white sauce and carries flavour through it.
- Flour
- Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth white sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
The step that matters
Make the white sauce smooth. Flour must be cooked briefly in the melted fat and milk added gradually while whisking, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens evenly.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, flour, milk, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, flour, milk, pepper. 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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