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Bacon and Macaroni

A macaroni and cheese dish with bacon, butter, milk, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Bacon and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the bacon in a pan until crispy, then remove and chop.

  2. Melt the butter in the same pan, add the milk, and bring to a simmer.

  3. Stir in the cheese until melted, then add the macaroni and bacon.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, mix well, 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 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
Provides the starchy body that the sauce coats and holds onto.
Bacon
Adds salty, savory fat and crisp texture against the soft pasta.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes a creamy sauce with the cheese.
Cheese
Melts into the milk to thicken the sauce and add savory flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the cheese until melted. Adding cheese to liquid that is boiling too hard can make it turn grainy or oily. Keeping the milk at a gentle simmer lets the cheese melt smoothly into a stable sauce.

“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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