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Italian Macaroni

A simple pasta dish of boiled macaroni mixed with gravy, butter, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Italian Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Bring 3 pints of water to a boil and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Add ¼ pound of macaroni and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni in a colander until as dry as possible.

Combine and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine the macaroni with ½ cup of gravy, 1 ounce of butter, and 1 ounce of Parmesan cheese.

  2. Stir over low heat for 5 minutes and serve.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 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
Provides the starchy pasta body that the gravy and cheese cling to.
Good gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor that coats the pasta.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dish a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and helps thicken the sauce as it melts.

The step that matters

Drain the macaroni until as dry as possible. Excess water left on the pasta dilutes the gravy and butter, so the sauce turns thin and watery instead of clinging to the macaroni.

“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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