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Macaroni Cutlets

A fried cutlet made from boiled macaroni, cheese, mustard, and spices coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the macaroni and cut it into pieces ½ inch long.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour gradually, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the milk and stir over heat until the sauce thickens.

  4. Mix the macaroni, cheese, mustard, cayenne, and salt with the sauce.

  5. Turn the mixture onto a plate and let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into cutlets or small rolls, then roll in breadcrumbs.

  2. Dip in beaten egg, then roll in breadcrumbs again.

  3. Fry the cutlets in boiling oil until golden brown.

  4. Serve with a garnish of fried parsley.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

  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 cutlet and gives it a firm, chewy body once cut.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavour and helps bind the mixture with the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the flour roux and carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the cutlets together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.
Egg
Coats the shaped cutlets so the breadcrumbs stick and the crust sets when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, loose sauce-and-pasta mixture is too soft to hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch in the sauce set, so the cutlets keep their form and do not break apart in the frying oil.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, flour, milk, egg. 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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