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Macaroni with Cheese

A baked macaroni dish with butter, cheese, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Macaroni with 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 with 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.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into short sticks without washing.

  2. Cook in salted boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes, shaking the saucepan to prevent sticking.

  3. Drain the cooked macaroni in a colander.

Assemble and bake

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. In a pudding dish, layer some macaroni, cheese, melted butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is filled.

  4. Top with remaining butter and cheese, then fill the dish with milk.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 provides the starchy body that holds the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the top turn golden in the oven.
Cheese
Melts into the milk to create the creamy, savoury sauce and adds flavour.
Milk
Provides the liquid that becomes a creamy sauce around the pasta as the dish bakes.

The step that matters

Shaking the macaroni while it cooks. Shaking the saucepan keeps the pasta moving so the pieces do not stick together, letting each piece cook evenly and separate for layering.

“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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