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 ↓
Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the macaroni
Boil the macaroni in white stock until tender, then drain.
Season the macaroni with coarse sea salt, cayenne, and powdered mace.
Make the cheese sauce
Remove the rind from the cheese and cut it into thin slices.
Dissolve the cheese in the cream, seasoning it like the macaroni.
Add the macaroni to the cheese mixture and toss lightly until well mixed.
Bake and serve
Transfer to a serving dish and cover with fried, dried bread crumbs.
Serve very hot.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + creamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,655 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 of the dish and gives it a tender, starchy body.
- Cheese
- Melts into the cream to create the rich, smooth sauce that coats the pasta.
- Cream
- Adds fat and moisture, helping the cheese melt into a smooth sauce.
- Fine bread crumbs
- Fried and dried, they add a crisp, golden topping in contrast to the soft pasta.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and flavour, and helps carry the fat-based taste through the dish.
The step that matters
Dissolve the cheese in the cream. Cheese can turn grainy or oily if it is overheated or heated too fast, because its proteins tighten and separate from the fat. Melting it gently in the cream keeps the sauce smooth.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, cheese, cream, bread):
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cheese, cream, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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