Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Pudding

A steamed pudding of macaroni, minced meat, eggs, milk, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in stock or water until tender.

  2. Mince the cold meat finely and season with parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Grease a pudding basin or mold with butter.

Assemble and steam

  1. Layer the macaroni and meat in the basin, seasoning each layer.

  2. Beat the eggs and milk together, then pour over the layered mixture.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and steam for one hour.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn out of the basin and serve with brown gravy or 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, binding the layers into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Milk
Forms the moist custard with the eggs, keeping the pudding tender rather than dry.
Macaroni
Provides the starchy body and bulk that holds the pudding together.
Cold meat
Adds savoury flavour and substance as the main filling in the layers.

The step that matters

Steaming the layered pudding. Steam heat must set the egg and milk custard gently and evenly. Too much heat or boiling water can make the custard curdle or turn spongy, so the pudding should be covered and kept at a steady simmer.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, egg, milk. 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.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes