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Timbale De Macaroni

A baked dish of macaroni, butter, white sauce, stewed ox palates, and mushrooms arranged in a timbale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Timbale De Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender but not too soft, then cut it into half-inch pieces.

  2. Butter a mold and arrange the macaroni closely to resemble a honeycomb.

  3. Spread a thin layer of quenelle farce over the macaroni.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the mold with the stewed ox palates and mushrooms, moistened with white sauce.

  2. Close the mold and boil for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn it out and serve with thick white sauce and mushrooms.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 honeycomb shell that holds the filling in its shape.
White sauce
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and cohesive.
Stewed ox palates
Provides the main meaty filling with a tender, gelatinous texture.
Mushrooms
Adds earthy flavor and a contrasting texture to the filling.
Butter
Greases the mold so the timbale releases cleanly after cooking.

The step that matters

Carefully turn it out. The macaroni shell holds its honeycomb pattern only if the timbale has set in the mold. Turning it out too early or too roughly can break the shell and spill the filling.

“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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