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Macaroni Au Jus

Macaroni cooked in beef or veal stock, seasoned with salt and pepper, optionally enriched with meat extract, cheese, butter, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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.

  3. Add ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper.

Cook and thicken

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

  2. Test the macaroni by trying a small piece.

  3. If needed, strengthen the remaining stock with 1 teaspoon of Liebig’s Extract of Meat.

  4. Thicken the stock with baked flour until desired consistency.

  5. If desired, stir in 1 ounce of grated Parmesan and ½ ounce of English cheese during the last half of cooking.

Serve

  1. Add a pat of butter 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 body of the dish and absorbs the stock as it cooks.
Beef or veal stock
Provides the liquid and savoury meat flavour that the whole dish is built on.
Baked flour
Thickens the stock so it clings to the macaroni.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and richness to the stock and finished dish.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Thicken the stock with baked flour. Flour must be fully mixed in and cooked through, or it stays lumpy and tastes raw. Starch thickens the liquid only as it heats, so add it gradually and simmer until the stock reaches the desired consistency.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, meat, flour, parmesan cheese, cheese, butter):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, meat, flour, parmesan cheese, cheese, butter. 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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