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Macaroni and Cream

A creamy macaroni dish with Gruyère, Parmesan, butter, and cream, served with toasted bread triangles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Macaroni and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into short lengths.

  2. Boil in salted water for about 20 minutes, or until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Heat the butter in a pan.

  2. Drain the macaroni and add it to the pan.

  3. Stir in the cheeses and cream, and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Heat until hot and serve garnished with triangles of bread.

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. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 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 firm, pasta-like bite.
Gruyère cheese
Melts into the cream to add savoury flavour and a smooth, stringy texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds sharp, salty flavour and helps the sauce cling to the pasta.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the dish.
Cream
Provides moisture and body, forming the creamy sauce that coats the pasta.

The step that matters

Heat until hot. Once the cheeses and cream are stirred in, gentle heat is needed to melt the cheese smoothly. Overheating can make cream-based sauces separate or turn grainy, so keep the heat moderate.

“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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