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Macaroni and Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with a butter, flour, milk, cheese sauce and breadcrumb topping.

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 bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until well blended.

  2. Add the milk and stir until it comes to a boil.

  3. Stir in the salt, cayenne pepper, and cheese until the cheese melts.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the boiled macaroni to the sauce and stir well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a dish.

  3. Sprinkle with fine bread-crumbs.

  4. Brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 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 holds the sauce in every bite.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour through the flour mixture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that clings to the macaroni.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it creaminess.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce to add savoury, rich flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the cheese until it melts. Cheese added to a very hot sauce can turn stringy or grainy if overheated. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring steadily lets the proteins melt smoothly into the 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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