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Timbale of Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with mushroom sauce, egg yolk, and cream, served in a timbale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Timbale of Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Cook macaroni in boiling water with salt, then strain it.

Make the mushroom sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt butter and add chopped mushrooms.

  2. Cook mushrooms slowly on the side of the stove for about 15 minutes until juices are released.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the mushrooms, then add hot boiling water or stock, salt, pepper, spices, and lemon juice.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolk with cream.

  6. Remove the mushroom sauce from heat, cool for a minute, then stir in the egg yolk and cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a timbale dish, layer butter, macaroni, and mushroom sauce alternately until all ingredients are used.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve in the same dish.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the timbale and holds its shape when layered and baked.
Mushrooms
Release juices as they cook slowly, adding earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the sauce and the layers.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the mushroom juices and stock into a smooth sauce that coats the macaroni.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it set as it bakes, giving a custard-like body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce and making it silky.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk and cream in off the heat. Egg yolk thickens when heated, so if the sauce is too hot it can scramble or curdle. Cooling it for a minute before stirring in the yolk and cream keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, flour, pepper, egg, cream):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, flour, pepper, egg, cream. 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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