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Macaroni Cheese Au Gratin

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Cheese Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted water until tender, then drain.

Assemble

  1. In a greased pie dish, layer macaroni, sprinkle with cheese and seasonings, and repeat layers.

  2. Mix breadcrumbs with the last layer of cheese.

  3. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot and browned on top.

  2. Serve very hot with dry toast or plain biscuits.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 sets the structure once layered and baked.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers to give a rich, binding texture and savoury flavour.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven, contrasting the soft interior.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and helps the top brown as it melts.

The step that matters

Bake until hot and browned on top. Baking must be long enough to heat the centre through and melt the cheese, while the breadcrumbs and butter brown the surface. Stopping early leaves the dish lukewarm and pale.

“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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