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Veal and Macaroni Scallop

A baked casserole of macaroni layered with chopped cold veal, seasoned with curry and lemon peel, and topped with egg and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal and Macaroni Scallop

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, then drain and cool quickly.

  2. Cut the macaroni into half-inch lengths.

  3. Chop the cold veal and season with salt, pepper, curry powder, and lemon peel.

Assemble

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer macaroni, seasoning with salt and pepper, and wet with milk.

  2. Add a layer of chopped veal, dot with butter, and repeat layers until all ingredients are used.

  3. Smooth the top layer, which should be meat, and butter it well.

  4. Mix 2 beaten eggs with cream and a teaspoon of curry, then pour over the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle with fine bread crumbs, cover, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15 minutes or until heated through.

  2. Brown quickly 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the cream mixture into a custard that binds the layers together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the custard poured over the top.
Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs liquid as it bakes.
Veal
Provides the main meat layers and savory body of the dish.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the top layer.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the veal and the custard.

The step that matters

Broiling the crumb top. Fine bread crumbs brown and scorch within seconds under a broiler, so watch closely. Eggs in the custard can also curdle if the dish is baked too hot, so the gentle covered bake comes first.

“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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