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Macaroni and Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce and cheese, topped with buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Macaroni and Cheese

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pasta

  1. Break macaroni into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Cook the macaroni in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni, then rinse the macaroni with cold water.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add flour to the melted butter to make a roux.

  3. Gradually whisk in milk.

  4. Cook the mixture until thickened.

  5. Add the cooked macaroni and cheese to the sauce, then mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

  2. Top the mixture with buttered crumbs.

  3. Place the baking dish in a pan of hot water.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until 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.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk and structure of the dish once cooked until tender.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and creamy texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the roux and helps the crumbs brown.

The step that matters

Cook the roux and milk until thickened. Flour must cook in the melted butter and the milk must be added gradually and stirred, or the sauce can turn lumpy. Cooking until thickened lets the starch swell so the sauce coats the pasta.

“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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