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Potage De Macaroni a LA Sicilienne

A Sicilian-style macaroni soup with consommé, butter, white pepper, Parmesan, and chopped beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Potage De Macaroni a LA Sicilienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the consommé as described for Neapolitan macaroni soup and reduce it by half.

  2. Blanch the macaroni in boiling water for 25 minutes in half of the consommé, then add the butter and ground white pepper to the macaroni.

Layer and serve

  1. In a serving bowl, layer the macaroni, sprinkle with Parmesan, and cover with chopped beef.

  2. Repeat the layers of macaroni, beef, and Parmesan.

  3. Finish by drizzling with the remaining consommé and serve.

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 + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Beef + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together726 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. White pepper + parmesan cheesetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

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 soup and absorbs the consommé, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour of the broth and pasta.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and umami that deepens the broth.
Cooked beef
Contributes meaty flavour and substance between the pasta layers.
Consommé
Provides the clear, savoury liquid that cooks the macaroni and flavours the dish.

The step that matters

Blanching the macaroni in consommé. Cooking pasta for a long 25 minutes in a limited amount of liquid can make it soft and sticky if it is not watched. Keeping the liquid at a steady simmer and checking tenderness helps the pasta stay intact while it absorbs flavour.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, parmesan cheese):

  1. Pepperfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, parmesan cheese. 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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