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Macaroni and Meat

A baked dish of cold boiled macaroni mixed with finely chopped roast beef or mutton, seasoned and topped with breadcrumbs and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Macaroni and Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a pudding dish, nearly fill it with cold boiled macaroni.

  3. In the center, add the chopped meat seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and optional liquor from canned tomatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour stock or gravy over the mixture.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs and drizzle with melted butter.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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

Lean roast beef or mutton
Provides the savory meat base that forms the dish's main filling.
Cold boiled macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and soaks up the stock and gravy as it bakes.
Stock or gravy
Adds moisture and savoriness so the macaroni and meat do not dry out in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp top layer that browns in the oven.
Melted butter
Adds fat that helps the bread crumbs brown and crisp.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, thyme, bread, butter):

  1. Tomatothe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, thyme, bread, 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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