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Casserole of Sausage, Spaghetti and Apple

A baked casserole of cooked spaghetti, seasoned sausage, sweetened apple, and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Casserole of Sausage, Spaghetti and Apple

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease the bottom of a baking dish with butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the cooked spaghetti in the bottom of the dish.

  2. Add a layer of seasoned sausage meat on top of the spaghetti.

  3. Spread a thick layer of slightly sweetened chopped apple over the sausage.

  4. Top with buttered crumbs.

  5. Bake until the apple and sausage are cooked through.

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. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  5. Apple + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Spaghetti
Forms the base layer that holds the casserole together and gives it bulk.
Sausage meat
Supplies the savory, fatty flavor that carries through the whole casserole.
Chopped apple
Adds moisture and a mild sweetness that balances the seasoned sausage.
Buttered crumbs
Form the topping, where butter helps the crumbs brown in the oven.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, 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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