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Macaroni and Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with broth, milk, egg yolk, cream, cheese, butter, breadcrumbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Macaroni and Cheese

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Wash the macaroni and simmer it in broth with pounded mace and salt until tender.

  2. Remove the macaroni from the broth and place it in a dish.

Assemble and brown

  1. Grate cheese over the macaroni, then cover with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Melt butter and pour it evenly over the dish.

  3. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk, cream, and a little of the broth until combined.

  4. Pour the mixture over the macaroni before browning.

  5. Place the dish in a Dutch oven to brown the cheese and bread crumbs.

Serve

  1. Serve 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.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 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 tender, pasta-based structure.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce and adds rich flavor, and browns on top when baked.
Egg yolk
Enriches the liquid and helps bind the sauce so it sets into a custard-like texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor and helps the top brown evenly.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture over the macaroni before browning. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently. If the dish is overheated or baked too long, the yolk can scramble and make the sauce grainy, so the custard should set just enough to bind.

Swap the mace

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

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

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