Why it works: Butter and milk 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 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 the macaroni
Break macaroni into 2-inch pieces and wash it.
Cook macaroni in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender, then drain in a colander and rinse with cold water.
Make the sauce
Make a white sauce by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in milk until thickened.
Stir in macaroni and cheese.
Bake and serve
Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the crumbs are browned.
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.
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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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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 and structure of the dish once cooked until tender.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce.
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour and helps the crumbs brown.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
- Cheese
- Adds rich savoury flavour and creamy melting texture to the sauce.
The step that matters
Making the white sauce. Flour must be cooked briefly in melted butter and milk added gradually while whisking, otherwise the sauce can clump or stay floury instead of thickening smoothly.
“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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