Name: Macaroni Pudding
Ingredients: ½ lb macaroni; 1 packet custard powder; 1 cup Swiss milk; 2 cups water; 1 pinch coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon essence of lemon; Butter for greasing

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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Break the macaroni into small pieces and add to a saucepan of boiling water with a pinch of salt.
Boil until tender, then strain.
Mix 3 tablespoons of Swiss milk with ½ cup of water and add a little to the custard powder, mixing until smooth.
Bring the remaining water to a boil in a stewpan, then pour it onto the custard mixture while stirring continuously.
Flavor the custard with essence of lemon.
Butter a pie dish generously, add the macaroni, and pour the custard over it.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).