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Chicken and Macaroni

A baked casserole of shredded chicken, macaroni, butter, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken until very tender, then remove the meat from the bones and finely shred it.

  2. Boil the macaroni until tender, then cut it into one-inch pieces.

Assemble

  1. Butter a two-quart baking dish and line it with the macaroni pieces.

  2. Layer the shredded chicken seasoned with the chicken broth, salt, pepper, and a little butter.

  3. Add a layer of macaroni, and repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  4. Pour the cream over the top and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. If baked correctly, the dish will be solid enough to turn out onto a plate.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory meaty flavor of the casserole.
Macaroni
Forms the starchy layers that give the casserole its body and hold its shape.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture that helps the layers bind and bake tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the chicken layers moist.

The step that matters

Baking until the dish sets. The cream must bake long enough for its proteins to set and bind the layers. Underbaked, the casserole stays loose and will not hold its shape when turned out.

“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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