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 ↓
Macaroni Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Parboil the macaroni in water until slightly tender.
Boil the macaroni in milk until fully tender.
Wind the macaroni around a buttered mold.
Add a layer of highly seasoned forcemeat.
Add a fricassee of chicken or sweetbreads cut small.
Fill the mold with more macaroni and top with another layer of forcemeat.
Cover with a piece of white paper and then the mold cover.
Place the mold in a pan of boiling water and simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Serve with white sauce poured over it. Optionally, add mushrooms with the fricassee.
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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Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,172 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,231 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,389 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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