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Macaroni Mold

A baked macaroni dish shaped in a mold, filled with creamed meat or fish and topped with parsley and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Macaroni Mold

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. Rinse the macaroni in cold water.

  3. Butter a mold with a flat surface.

Shape the mold

  1. Coil the macaroni from the middle of the bottom until the surface is covered.

  2. Fill the center with the hot creamed meat or fish to hold the macaroni in place.

  3. Add more macaroni until the mold is full.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a pan of hot water for 30 minutes.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve with white sauce.

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 + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the structure of the mold once cooked and coiled, holding its shape when turned out.
Butter
Greases the mold so the set macaroni releases cleanly and browns lightly.
Creamed meat or fish
Fills the center to hold the macaroni in place and adds moisture and richness.
White sauce
Serving sauce that adds moisture and richness to the molded macaroni.

The step that matters

Coil the macaroni from the middle of the bottom until the surface is covered.. Macaroni that is packed loosely or unevenly leaves gaps and weak spots, so the molded shape may break when turned out. Starting at the center and working outward keeps the layers even and supports the filling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, meat, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, sauce. 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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