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Macaroni K LA Reine

A baked macaroni dish with butter, Parmesan, béchamel, and tomato purée, layered and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Macaroni K LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in 3 pints of boiling water with 1 teaspoon of salt and a piece of butter until soft, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, add 1 ounce of fresh butter to the macaroni gradually, shaking the pan as it melts.

  2. Stir in 2 ounces of grated Parmesan cheese and ½ cup of white sauce until thick and creamy.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the macaroni in a dish with tomato purée, starting and ending with macaroni layers.

  2. Serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Parmesan cheese + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Chestnut + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 holds the sauce between its layers.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy coating to the macaroni.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and body to the sauce as it melts into it.
White sauce
Binds the macaroni and cheese into a thick, creamy mixture.
Tomato purée
Adds acidity and color between the layers.

The step that matters

Stir in the Parmesan and white sauce until thick and creamy. Stirring over heat lets the cheese melt evenly into the white sauce. Overheating can make the cheese grainy or oily, so the sauce may split instead of turning smooth.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parmesan cheese, sauce, tomato):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Lima beansfits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, sauce, tomato. 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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