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Macaroni Au Gratin

A baked macaroni dish layered with cheese and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni Au Gratin

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. Cook the macaroni in stock.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer cheese and butter, then add a layer of macaroni.

  2. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.

  3. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 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 the gratin its substantial, starchy body.
Stock
Cooks the pasta and adds savoury flavour as the macaroni absorbs it.
Cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the layers brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking at the stated heat sets the layers and browns the cheese and butter on top. Pulling the dish too early leaves it pale and soft, while leaving it too long can dry it out.

“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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