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Macaroni a LA Turque

A baked macaroni dish with onion, parsley, eggs, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni a LA Turque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the macaroni in water for 1 hour, then strain.

  2. Add the grated onion, chopped parsley, and finely chopped hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Mix in the breadcrumbs, beaten eggs, and season with salt and pepper.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered basin and steam for 2½ hours.

  2. Serve with tomato 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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 dish, becoming soft and tender after long boiling.
Eggs
Beaten and hard-boiled eggs bind the mixture and set it firm during gentle steaming.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the mixture hold together when steamed.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and flavour that runs through the whole dish.

The step that matters

Steaming in the buttered basin. Gentle steam sets the beaten eggs slowly into a firm, sliceable mass without drying it out. The well-buttered basin keeps the pudding from sticking so it turns out whole.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, egg, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, egg, pepper. 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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