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Macaroni Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Macaroni Cheese

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 Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Cook the macaroni

  1. Wash the macaroni.

  2. Put it into fast-boiling water and boil until very tender.

  3. Drain the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Replace the water with ½ pint of milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the flour mixed with a little cold milk or water and simmer for 5 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a shallow pie dish.

  2. Layer the thickened milk and macaroni with grated cheese, dusting each layer with pepper if desired.

  3. Top with more grated cheese and small pieces of butter.

  4. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until nicely 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.

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

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of the dish, giving it bulk and a tender bite.
Cheese
Provides rich flavour and melts into the sauce, adding savoury depth.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and moisture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that coats the macaroni.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour mixture. Flour added to hot milk clumps unless it is first mixed with cold liquid and stirred well. Simmering then cooks out the raw flour taste and thickens the sauce evenly.

“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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