Skip to main content
Main

Timbale De Macaroni

A boiled macaroni timbale filled with stewed ox palates, mushrooms, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Timbale De Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until it is tender but not too soft.

  2. Cut the macaroni into half-inch pieces.

Assemble the timbale

  1. Butter a mold and arrange the macaroni closely to resemble a honeycomb.

  2. Spread a thin layer of quenelle farce over the macaroni.

  3. Fill the mold with a mixture of stewed ox palates and small button mushrooms, moistened with white sauce.

  4. Close the mold and boil for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn out the timbale and serve with thick white sauce and mushrooms.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 honeycomb shell and gives the timbale its firm, sliceable structure.
Butter
Greases the mold so the timbale releases cleanly and adds richness.
Quenelle farce
Forms a delicate, smooth layer that binds the macaroni to the filling when cooked.
Stewed ox palates
Provides the main meaty filling, with tender texture after slow stewing.
Small button mushrooms
Add moisture, earthy flavour and texture to the filling.
White sauce
Moistens the filling and provides a creamy body that keeps it from drying out.

The step that matters

Turning out the timbale. Once cooked, the starch and protein set the shape, but the timbale can break if it is not given time to firm and the mold is not released gently. Carefully loosening the edges and inverting it steadily keeps the honeycomb pattern intact.

“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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes