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 Romflus
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the tongue and rice
Prepare the beef tongue by trimming it and cutting it into small rounds, about 6 inches in diameter.
Prepare the veal rice and cut it into rounds.
Cook the components
In a sauté pan, place the tongue rounds with butter and consommé.
In a pot, simmer the blanched macaroni in fine butter and white pepper for 30 minutes.
Layer and serve
In a serving dish, layer the macaroni, Parmesan, veal rice, quenelles, and tongue, repeating the layers.
Cover the top with Parmesan and drizzle with the remaining macaroni broth and consommé before serving.
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.
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Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,163 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Parmesan cheese + ricetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together879 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,265 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 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
- Beef tongue
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, moist cooking in consommé and butter.
- Macaroni
- Forms the bulk of the dish and soaks up butter and broth, giving a soft, tender texture.
- Parmesan cheese
- Adds savory, salty depth and helps bind the layers together as it melts.
- Consommé
- Supplies moisture and concentrated meaty flavor to the tongue and the finished dish.
- Fine butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and smoothing the texture of the macaroni.
The step that matters
Simmering the macaroni in butter and white pepper for 30 minutes. Simmering gently keeps the pasta tender without breaking it down. Too fast a boil can make it mushy and uneven, and the butter needs gentle heat to coat the pasta evenly.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, parmesan cheese, veal, rice):
- Pepperfits better
- Celeryfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, parmesan cheese, veal, rice. 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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