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Macaroni Au Vin

A baked macaroni dish with wine, butter, cream, and Parmesan served over a French roll.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Au Vin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven and take a hot French roll out.

  2. Grate the roll and pour the wine over it, covering it for 1 hour to absorb the wine.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the macaroni until soft, then drain it on a sieve.

  2. Add the butter and enough thick cream to the macaroni.

  3. Scrape in Parmesan cheese and mix until it resembles a fine custard.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture hot over the roll, brown it with a salamander, 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Wine + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,004 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Cream + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

French roll
Soaked in wine, the grated roll forms the soft base that holds the dish together.
Wine
Soaks into the grated roll, adding moisture and flavour to the base.
Macaroni
Cooked until soft, it provides the bulk and body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel to the mixture.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the macaroni turn into a smooth custard-like mixture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the mixture thicken as it sets.

The step that matters

Browning with a salamander. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs high surface heat and a dry top. Too little heat leaves the dish pale and under-flavoured, while overcooking can dry it out.

“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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