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Fish Axd Macaroni

A baked dish of macaroni and fish mixed with butter, egg yolks, lemon, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Axd Macaroni

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.

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni in water until tender, then drain and cut into short pieces.

  2. Remove the bones and skin from the boiled fish, tear it into small pieces, and mix with the macaroni.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 ounces of butter, then add the egg yolks, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Stir in ½ pint of melted butter and mix in the fish and macaroni until heated through.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a dish, heaping it in the center, and sprinkle with fine bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is light brown.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish and holds its shape when cut into short pieces.
Egg yolks
Enrich the butter sauce and help it bind the fish and macaroni together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the top brown in the oven.
Fish (in the method)
Provides the main protein and flavour, flaked into the macaroni.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolks into the butter. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can scramble if the mixture gets too hot or is heated too quickly. Keep the heat low and stir constantly so the sauce becomes creamy and binds the dish.

“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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