Name: Baked Macaroni
Ingredients: ½ box macaroni; salt (to taste); ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ½ cup butter; 3 ounces grated cheese

Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the macaroni

Break the macaroni into small pieces.
Place the macaroni in a saucepan with boiling salted water and cook until tender.
Drain the macaroni.

Season and bake

Transfer the drained macaroni to a stew-pan and add black pepper, salt and butter.
Mix in grated cheese.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with more cheese.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the bulk and structure of the dish once cooked and baked.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, coating the pasta and carrying flavour.
Grated cheese: Melts into the pasta for creaminess and savoury flavour, and browns on top.

“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.