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Timball of Macaroni and Chicken

A baked dish of macaroni, chicken, Parmesan, and puff pastry, served with béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Timball of Macaroni and Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

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

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in water with butter for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the macaroni.

  3. Return the macaroni to the stew-pan, add stock, and simmer until reduced.

Assemble the timball

  1. Prepare a fricassée of chicken.

  2. Mix the chicken fricassée with the macaroni and Parmesan cheese.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Butter a mold and sprinkle it with bread crumbs.

  5. Line the mold with puff pastry.

  6. Fill the puff pastry-lined mold with the cooled mixture.

  7. Cover the mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C) until done.

  2. Turn the timball out of the mold.

  3. Cut the top off.

  4. Serve with a little béchamel sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 filling and gives the timball its body when set.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the macaroni as it cooks and helps keep the pasta from sticking.
Good stock
Adds savoury depth and moisture, which the pasta absorbs as the liquid reduces.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps bind the filling together as it melts.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden, flaky shell around the filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before filling the mold. Hot filling would melt the butter in the puff pastry and soften it before baking, so the shell would not rise and crisp properly. Cooling also lets the Parmesan and starch firm up so the timball holds its shape when turned out.

“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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