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Macaroni Mould

A steamed macaroni dish with chicken or veal, ham, bread, and white sauce, garnished with pickled beetroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Macaroni Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Boil the macaroni until soft.

  2. Cut the boiled macaroni into pieces about 1 inch long.

  3. Butter a round mould or small deep bowl.

  4. Line the mould closely with the macaroni pieces, placing them endwise.

Fill and steam

  1. Fill the center with force meat, minced ham, and grated bread.

  2. Season the filling with pepper and salt.

  3. Cover the mould and steam it for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. When serving, pour white sauce around it.

  2. Garnish with a wreath of pickled beetroot.

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

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

  3. Pepper + beetroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,682 recipes

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

  4. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 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

Macaroni
Forms the outer shell and holds the filling in its shape once cooked soft.
Force meat of chicken or veal
Provides the main savoury body of the filling, binding it as it steams.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps the filling hold together while steaming.
Minced ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and some texture to the filling.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a smooth, creamy contrast to the firm steamed mould.

The step that matters

Lining the mould with macaroni. Pieces must be packed closely and set endwise so the mould holds its shape when turned out. Gaps let the filling escape or collapse during steaming.

Swap the beetroot

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, bread, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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