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Baked Spaghetti

A casserole of boiled spaghetti, butter, milk, and cheese baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Spaghetti

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

  1. Break the spaghetti into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Cook in boiling salted water until clear and tender, about 20 minutes.

Assemble

  1. Drain the spaghetti and layer it in a buttered bake-dish with grated cheese and bits of butter, seasoning with salt.

  2. Pour in the milk, raising the layers to let it sink to the bottom.

  3. Top with a thick layer of grated cheese.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Uncover and brown under the broiler before serving.

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 + 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Spaghetti
Forms the body of the casserole, holding the layers together once baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the layers taste full and stay tender.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Milk
Soaks into the pasta as it bakes, providing moisture and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Pour in the milk, raising the layers to let it sink to the bottom.. Milk poured over the top runs off unless the layers are lifted so it reaches the lower pasta. Even soaking keeps the casserole moist rather than dry in some spots and soupy in others.

“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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