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Macaroni Au Jus

Macaroni cooked slowly in beef or veal stock, seasoned with salt and pepper, optionally finished with cheese, butter, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Macaroni Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour off all the water from the macaroni.

  2. Place the macaroni in a stewpan with 1 pint of stock, salt, and pepper.

Simmer and test

  1. Simmer until the macaroni is tender, about 50-60 minutes for Genoese or 25-30 minutes for Neapolitan.

  2. Test the macaroni by trying a small piece.

  3. If needed, strengthen the remaining stock with ½ teaspoon of Liebig's Extract of Meat and thicken with baked flour.

  4. If desired, stir in grated Parmesan and English cheese during the last half of cooking.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a pat of butter towards the end and sprinkle with Parmesan before serving.

  2. Serve hot, optionally with tomato sauce on top or on the side.

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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the main body of the dish and absorbs the stock as it cooks.
Beef or veal stock
Cooks the pasta and supplies the savoury liquid that flavours it.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty depth and helps the dish taste rich when stirred in or sprinkled on top.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded richness to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Testing the macaroni for tenderness. Macaroni cooked in liquid keeps softening after it leaves the heat, and the cooking time varies by style, so tasting a small piece shows when it is tender enough to serve without becoming mushy or leaving the centre firm.

“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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