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Macaroni Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with cheese sauce made from milk, butter, flour, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Macaroni Cheese

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into small pieces.

  2. Put the macaroni into a saucepan of hot water and boil uncovered for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain off the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 oz of dripping in a small pan, then remove from heat.

  2. Add the flour to the melted dripping and mix well with a wooden spoon.

  3. Slowly pour in the milk while stirring constantly.

  4. Add the salt and 1 oz of grated cheese, stirring over low heat until the sauce boils.

  5. Pour the sauce into a basin and mix well with the macaroni.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a flat oval tin dish and transfer the macaroni and sauce into it.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

  3. Serve very hot.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the dish and gives it a firm, chewy body that holds the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to add rich flavour and a stretchy, creamy texture.
Flour
Thickens the melted fat and milk into a smooth sauce that coats the pasta.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.
Dripping or butter
Provides fat that carries flavour and helps form the roux for the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the roux. Pouring the milk in slowly while stirring constantly keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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