Name: Another Way to Dress Macaroni
Ingredients: 8 ounces macaroni; 2 cups milk; 2 ounces salt butter; 1 cup grated cheese; ½ cup sifted bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons butter (for topping)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Way to Dress Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

Simmer the macaroni in milk until tender.
Mix in the salted butter.

Assemble and bake

Layer grated cheese in the bottom of a baking dish.
Add a layer of macaroni, then more cheese, repeating until all ingredients are used.
Top with sifted bread crumbs and small bits of butter.
Brown in a Dutch oven or under a salamander.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the bulk and structure of the casserole, soaking up the milk as it cooks.
Milk: Cooks the pasta and turns into a creamy liquid that gives the casserole moisture.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor, and helps the topping brown.
Grated cheese: Melts through the layers to add richness, savoriness and a binding texture.
Bread crumbs: Forms a crisp topping that adds texture and promotes browning.

“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.