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Potage De Macaroni a LA Medicis

A creamy macaroni soup with butter, nutmeg, chicken, Parmesan, and crayfish, finished with consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Medicis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare your consommé as usual and reduce it by half.

  2. Blanch the macaroni in boiling water, then drain it.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Simmer the macaroni in half of the consommé with the butter and nutmeg for 25 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a serving dish, layer the macaroni, a sprinkle of Parmesan, crayfish tails, and chopped chicken.

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

  3. Pour the remaining consommé over the dish and serve immediately.

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 + crayfishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Chicken + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,846 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of the dish and absorbs the consommé as it simmers.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the simmering liquid.
Fresh parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and helps bind the layers together as it melts.
Cooked chicken
Adds savory meatiness and substance between the pasta layers.
Crayfish tails
Add delicate seafood flavor and a tender bite to the layers.
Consommé
Supplies the main liquid and seasoned broth flavor that the pasta absorbs.

The step that matters

Simmering the macaroni in the reduced consommé. Simmering for the full time lets the pasta absorb the seasoned liquid and soften evenly. Too little time leaves it firm, while too long makes it mushy and dulls the layers.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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