Name: Macaroni and Sweetbreads, Timbale of
Ingredients: 1 pound macaroni; 2 quarts milk; ¼ pound butter; 2 beaten eggs; coarse sea salt; pepper; fat bacon slices

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni and Sweetbreads, Timbale of

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the macaroni in milk and butter until tender, then drain on a cloth.
Line a mold with bacon slices.
Mix the macaroni with beaten eggs, salt, and pepper.
Place some macaroni in the mold, add a ragout of sweetbreads in the center, and fill with remaining macaroni.
Bake or boil the timbale for 1 hour.
Turn out of the mold, remove bacon slices, and serve with white or brown 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).