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 ↓
Macaroni with Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the macaroni
Boil water with a little salt.
Break the macaroni into pieces, wash it in cold water, and add it to the boiling water.
Boil until tender, about 20 minutes.
Strain the water and return the macaroni to the pan with the milk.
Simmer slowly until the milk is nearly absorbed.
Make the cheese sauce
Grate or chop the cheese, then stir in the butter and half the cheese.
Cook slowly for a few minutes, then add the mustard and seasoning.
Bake and serve
Pour into a greased baking dish, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top, and brown under the broiler or in the oven for a few minutes.
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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Milk + buttertop 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
- Provides the starchy pasta body that gives the dish its structure once cooked.
- Cheese
- Melts into the sauce to give rich flavour and a stretchy, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Cooks into the macaroni to form a creamy sauce that coats the pasta.
- Butter
- Adds fat for smoothness and richness in the cheese sauce.
- Prepared mustard
- Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the richness of the cheese.
The step that matters
Simmer slowly until the milk is nearly absorbed. Cooking gently keeps the milk from scorching or curdling and lets the starch in the pasta thicken it into a smooth sauce. Cheese added to very hot milk can turn grainy or oily, so the heat should be low when the cheese goes in.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, milk, butter, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, milk, butter, 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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