Name: Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients: ½ pound macaroni; 1 teaspoon salt; Grated vegetables (your choice); Small pieces of butter; Coarse sea salt (to taste); Cracker crumbs; 1 cup cream or milk

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 and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Break macaroni into 1-2 inch pieces.
Cook macaroni in boiling water with salt for 20 minutes.
Drain the macaroni well.

Assemble and bake

Layer macaroni in a buttered pudding dish, adding grated vegetables, butter, and salt between layers.
Top with a thick layer of cracker crumbs.
Pour cream or milk over the entire dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes until browned on top.
Serve in the baking dish with a clean napkin around it.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 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 starchy structure of the dish, holding the layers together when baked.
Cream or milk: Adds moisture and richness that soaks into the pasta as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs: Form a crisp, browned topping that contrasts with the soft pasta beneath.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Grated vegetables: Add moisture, flavor and color between the pasta layers.

“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.