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Scalloped Eggs, Macaroni and Cheese

A baked casserole of sliced hard‑cooked eggs, macaroni, cheese, and cracker crumbs in a white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Scalloped Eggs, Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the white sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the butter and flour mixed together until smooth.

  3. Cook until thick.

  4. Remove from heat and pour into a greased baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice the chilled hard-cooked eggs and layer them in the baking dish with the white sauce.

  2. Add the tender macaroni cut into pieces.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Sprinkle cheese and cracker crumbs on top.

  5. Bake at 300°F (150°C) until heated through.

  6. Increase the temperature to brown the top.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Hard-cooked eggs form the body of the dish and give it a firm, sliceable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the sauce smooth.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that holds the layers together.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and a soft, starchy texture between the layers.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns when the dish is baked.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thick before assembling. Flour thickens only when heated enough to swell its starch. If the sauce is left thin, the layers will run and the baked dish will be watery rather than set.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, egg. 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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