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Macaroni Cheess

A baked macaroni dish with cheese, butter, and breadcrumbs.

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Break the macaroni into small pieces.

  2. Put it into a stewpan with boiling water to cover and simmer until soft and tender.

  3. Strain off the water and lay the macaroni in a well-buttered pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and a few grains of cayenne if desired.

  2. Cut the cheese into thin slices and spread over the macaroni, adding small lumps of butter.

  3. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs.

  4. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 to 10 minutes until the cheese melts and the surface is browned.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, once simmered until tender, gives it its soft body.
Cheese
Melts into the macaroni to create a creamy, binding texture and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp top layer that contrasts with the soft macaroni beneath.

The step that matters

Bake until the surface is browned. The cheese should melt and the top should brown in a short time at high heat. Overbaking can dry out the cheese and toughen the pasta, while underbaking leaves the top pale and the cheese unmelted.

“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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