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Minced Veal and Macaroni

A baked casserole of minced veal, ham, and macaroni bound with eggs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Minced Veal and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the minced veal with the ham, gravy, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and bread crumbs.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to bind the mixture, making it like forcemeat.

  3. Boil the macaroni in salted water, then drain it.

Mould and steam

  1. Butter a mold and line the bottom and sides with some macaroni.

  2. Mix the remaining macaroni with the forcemeat and fill the mold to the top.

  3. Cover with a plate or small dish and steam for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn out and serve with good gravy.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and structure.
Minced veal
Forms the main body of the forcemeat and gives it a delicate texture.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and a tender, pasta-like structure within the casserole.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to bind the mixture. Eggs coagulate when heated and hold the crumbs and meat together. Too few eggs or a loose mix can leave the casserole crumbly or collapse when turned out.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, bread, egg, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, bread, egg, 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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