Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Macaroni

A creamy macaroni dish simmered in stock, milk, cream, cheese, and butter, finished with a browned top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Stewed Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in the brown stock or beef gravy until three-quarters cooked.

  2. Strain the macaroni.

  3. Add milk, cream, Parmesan cheese, butter, Cayenne pepper, and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir the mixture over medium heat for a few minutes. Smooth the surface.

  2. Brown the top with a hot iron.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of the dish, absorbing the stock and giving it substance.
Brown stock or beef gravy
Cooks the pasta while adding savory beef flavor and liquid.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and helps thicken the sauce as it melts.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Brown the top with a hot iron. Browning relies on Maillard reactions at high surface heat, which add color and toasted flavor. Too little heat leaves the top pale, while too much can scorch the cheese and dairy before the surface is evenly golden.

“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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes