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Jenny's Ma's Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

This is my mother's macaroni and cheese and it's my favorite. When I was a kid, I used to eat four or five helpings at one sitting! It doesn't use the tradtional...

By chow · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pasta and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 195 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Jenny's Ma's Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

4-6 servings

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By chow. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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. Pasta + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + pastatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + cheddar cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,436 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Broccolibetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pasta, cheddar cheese, mustard, pepper, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).