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Macaroni Au Vin

A baked French roll soaked in wine, topped with macaroni, butter, cream, and Parmesan, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 Au Vin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roll

  1. Preheat the oven and bake a French roll until hot.

  2. Grate the roll.

  3. Pour 1 pint of wine over the grated roll.

  4. Cover and let it soak for 1 hour.

Make the macaroni custard

  1. Boil 1 ounce of macaroni until soft, then drain it.

  2. Mix the drained macaroni with a walnut-sized piece of butter and thick cream to taste.

  3. Add grated Parmesan cheese and stir until it resembles a fine custard.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture hot over the soaked roll and brown it using a salamander.

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 + creamtop 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. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Wine + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,004 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

French roll
Forms the base that soaks up the wine and holds the dish together.
Wine
Soaks into the grated roll, adding moisture and flavour to the base.
Macaroni
Provides body and bulk within the creamy mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mixture a smoother texture.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture, helping the mixture set into a custard.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the mixture thicken as it is stirred.

The step that matters

Stirring in the Parmesan until the mixture resembles a fine custard. Cheese and cream thicken as they heat and combine. Stirring too little leaves the mixture loose, while overheating can make cheese grainy or tight, so the texture needs close attention.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, butter, cream, parmesan cheese):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, butter, cream, parmesan cheese. 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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