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Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with milk, veal broth, butter, cheese, egg yolk, cream, mace, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil macaroni in milk or veal broth until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni.

  3. Place the drained macaroni in a dish without the liquid.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add bits of butter and grated cheese.

  2. Top with more cheese and butter.

  3. Bake in a Dutch oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes, ensuring the top doesn't harden.

  4. Alternatively, simmer macaroni in broth with mace and salt until tender.

  5. Place the cooked macaroni in a dish.

  6. Cover with cheese and breadcrumbs.

  7. Pour warm butter over the top.

  8. Roast in a Dutch oven until the cheese is melted and the breadcrumbs are browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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 gives it a firm, starchy structure once cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the dish feel silky.
Grated cheese
Melts into the macaroni to add savoury flavour and a binding, stretchy texture.
Milk
Cooks the macaroni while adding a mild, creamy richness.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps set a custard-like texture when heated.

The step that matters

Keep the top from hardening during baking. Cheese and breadcrumbs dry out and toughen under strong, prolonged heat. Baking gently and covering the surface with butter helps keep the top soft and the cheese melted.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, veal, butter, cheese, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, veal, butter, cheese, egg, cream. 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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