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Timbale Milanaise

A layered pastry dish filled with macaroni and a Milanese-style stew of chicken, truffles, tongue, mushrooms, and cock's combs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Timbale Milanaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a mold lightly with butter.

  2. Line the mold with thin pastry dough.

  3. Layer the mold with 7 layers of puff pastry.

Make the macaroni filling

  1. Cook the macaroni in a large broth.

  2. Drain the macaroni.

  3. Season the macaroni with salt, pepper, grated Parmesan cheese, and a pinch of nutmeg.

  4. Fill the mold with the macaroni.

  5. Bake the filled mold until cooked.

  6. Unmold the baked timbale.

Fill and decorate

  1. Create an opening on top of the timbale.

  2. Leave a 1-inch border around the opening.

  3. Remove half of the macaroni from the timbale.

  4. Fill the remaining space with a Milanese stew of chicken breast slices, truffles, diced tongue, sliced mushrooms, and cock's combs.

  5. Ensure the filling exceeds the crust by 1 inch.

  6. Arrange 12 glazed chicken fillets around the edge of the timbale.

  7. Decorate the timbale with an English-style pastry border.

  8. Place a large cock's comb in the center 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Parmesan cheese + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 timbale and absorbs the seasoned broth as it bakes.
Puff pastry
Bakes into flaky, crisp layers that hold the shape of the mold.
Grated parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the macaroni brown slightly in the oven.
Chicken breast slices
Provides the lean, tender meat of the Milanese stew filling.
Truffles
Contributes a rich, earthy aroma to the filling.
Tongue
Adds rich, savory meat that gives the filling body and depth.

The step that matters

Unmold the baked timbale. Pastry that has not set fully or has cooled too long can stick or crack when inverted. Letting it rest briefly after baking lets the structure firm up so the shape holds when released from the mold.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parmesan cheese, chicken, truffle, mushroom. 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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