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Macaroni with Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with milk, cheese, eggs, flour, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Macaroni with Cheese

Why it works: Milk and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,426 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into 1-inch pieces and boil in slightly salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the macaroni in a colander.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Mix the flour with the olive oil until smooth, then stir it into the boiling milk.

  3. Stir continually until the mixture thickens.

  4. Add a dash of cayenne pepper, the cheese, and the drained macaroni.

  5. Finally, stir in the beaten eggs and cook for 1 more minute.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to an oiled baking dish and bake until browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Cheese + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,802 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its chewy bite.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the pasta.
Eggs
Set when cooked, helping bind the sauce and give it structure.
Whole meal flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce until it thickens. Flour thickens milk only as its starch swells with heat and stirring; stopping early leaves a thin sauce, and letting it sit can cause lumps. Constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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