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Macaroni and Bacon

A simple pasta dish of macaroni simmered in seasoned stock with bacon, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Macaroni and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into small pieces.

  2. Wash the macaroni and break it up.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in water with a lump of butter for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the macaroni and add seasoned stock.

  3. Boil until tender but not broken.

Finish and serve

  1. Toss with pepper, salt, and chopped bacon.

  2. Serve on a hot dish.

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 + 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
Forms the body of the dish and absorbs the stock as it cooks.
Bacon
Adds salty, smoky flavor and fat that carries flavor through the pasta.
Seasoned stock
Supplies liquid and savory flavor that the macaroni absorbs as it boils.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pasta from sticking and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until tender but not broken. Pasta keeps cooking from residual heat after draining and continues to soften in the stock. Stopping at tender, not mushy, keeps the shape and bite intact.

“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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