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Macaroni Savoury

A baked macaroni dish with eggs, milk, wheatmeal, cheese, onion, lemon rind, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Macaroni Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, and wheatmeal to create a batter.

  2. Add the macaroni, onion, lemon rind, cheese, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and salt to the batter.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  4. Dot the top with pieces of butter.

  5. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours until set and golden.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard-like batter as they cook, holding the bake together.
Fine wheatmeal
Thickens the milk and egg mixture into a batter that holds the macaroni.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the batter and keeps the bake moist as it cooks.
Macaroni
Provides the bulk and body of the bake, soaking up the batter.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury richness and helps the top turn golden as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the centre runny while overbaking can make the custard dry and rubbery. Check that the centre is firm and the top is golden before removing it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, lemon, cheese, parsley, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, lemon, cheese, parsley, butter, nutmeg. 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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