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
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.
Cook the macaroni
Boil the macaroni in salted water for 30 minutes.
Cool the macaroni.
Chop the cooled macaroni.
Make the cheese sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
Gradually add the milk and mustard.
Stir until the mixture thickens.
Mix in the grated cheese until melted.
Bake and serve
Combine the cheese sauce with the macaroni in a shallow dish.
Sprinkle additional cheese on top.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,805 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Provides the starchy bulk that the sauce coats and holds together in the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the sauce feel smooth.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a sauce by swelling with heat as it is cooked with the butter.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess as it thickens.
- Grated cheese
- Melts into the sauce to add savoury flavour and body, and browns on top in the oven.
The step that matters
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Cooking flour in melted butter creates a roux; cooking it briefly removes the raw starchy taste, and adding milk too early or unevenly can leave lumps before the sauce thickens.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, cheese):
- Potatofits better
- Chivefits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, 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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