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Chicken and Macaroni a LA Milanaise

Baked chicken pieces topped with macaroni and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken and Macaroni a LA Milanaise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken in salted water until cooked, then carve it into eleven pieces.

  2. Arrange the chicken pieces on a fire-proof platter with white meat at one end and dark meat at the other.

Cook the macaroni

  1. In the same pot, boil the macaroni or spaghetti in the chicken pot-liquor or salted water until tender but not breaking.

  2. Boil the onion in the liquor. Remove the onion before draining the macaroni.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the chicken completely with the cooked macaroni.

  2. Sift Parmesan cheese over the top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  4. Serve the dish on the platter.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Chicken + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,846 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Onion + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,717 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and, when simmered, flavours the pot-liquor used to cook the macaroni.
Macaroni or spaghetti
Forms the starchy base layer that holds the dish together and carries the flavour of the liquor.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns in the oven, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust on top.

The step that matters

Cooking the macaroni until tender but not breaking. Pasta cooked too long turns soft and mushy and loses its shape, so it will not hold a clean layer over the chicken. Pulling it when just tender keeps the pieces intact through baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, parmesan cheese):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, parmesan cheese. 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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