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Macaroni Pie

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into short lengths and cook in rapidly boiling salted water until tender, then drain well.

Make the filling

  1. Return the macaroni to the saucepan and stir in the cheese, milk, butter, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Turn the mixture into a pie dish lined with flaky paste.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes and 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.

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 + milktop 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 pie, giving it a substantial, starchy body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the filling to add richness, flavour and a creamy binding texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, creamy sauce around the pasta.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel in the filling.
Flaky paste
Forms the crisp, flaky crust that holds and encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Drain the macaroni well. Excess cooking water left on the pasta dilutes the milk and cheese, making the filling runny and preventing it from setting firmly in the oven.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, pepper, milk. 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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