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Macaroni and Cheese

A baked dish of macaroni mixed with butter, cheese, salt, pepper, and milk or cream.

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

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in a stew pan with a little water until tender.

  2. In a pudding dish, warm a little butter.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the macaroni, then a layer of grated cheese, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and small pieces of butter.

  2. Repeat the layers, finishing with cheese on top.

  3. Pour enough milk or cream to just cover the ingredients.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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 holds the sauce in its starchy structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the top brown.
Grated cheese
Melts into the milk to form a creamy, savoury sauce.
Rich milk or cream
Provides liquid that sets with the cheese and starch into a custard-like sauce.

The step that matters

Pour enough milk or cream to just cover the ingredients. Too little liquid leaves the macaroni dry, while too much makes a soupy dish that will not set. The liquid should just cover the layers so the starch absorbs it and the sauce thickens as it bakes.

“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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