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Macaroni with White Sauce

Macaroni with white sauce is a pasta dish topped with a creamy sauce made from butter, flour, cream, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni according to package instructions or use spaghetti.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a saucepan, boil the cream and add salt, pepper, and celery extract to taste.

  2. While boiling, mix the butter and flour together, then stir into the cream until it thickens.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the macaroni and cheese in a dish, then pour the sauce over the top.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Cream + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

Rich cream
Forms the body of the sauce and provides richness and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and combines with flour to start the thickened base.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce as it heats and binds with the butter.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and sharpness to the layered dish.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the cream. Flour must be fully blended with the butter and then whisked into hot cream so it disperses evenly; added lumpy or without stirring, it forms clumps instead of a smooth, thickened sauce.

“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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