Name: To Boil Macaroni
Ingredients: 6 ounces macaroni; ½ cup weak gravy or water; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 teaspoon mustard

Why it works: Butter and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,003 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

To Boil Macaroni

Ingredients

6 ounces macaroni
½ cup weak gravy or water
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon mustard

Directions

Boil the macaroni in weak gravy or water until tender.
Drain the macaroni in a sieve.
In a stewpan, combine the drained macaroni with butter and mustard, then stir until the butter is melted and everything is well mixed.

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.

Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,003 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 its tender, starchy body.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth coating that carries flavour across the pasta.
Mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the butter.

“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.