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Potage a LA Cameeani

A soup of macaroni, chicken livers, vegetables, and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the chicken livers and vegetables finely.

Make the filling

  1. Stew them in butter until cooked.

  2. Scald the macaroni and season with salt, pepper, and spices.

  3. Drain the macaroni when tender.

Assemble and cook

  1. In a fireproof soup tureen, layer macaroni, chopped liver and vegetables, and Parmesan cheese until full.

  2. Place the tureen in a pan of boiling water and stew until fully cooked.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Celery + parsniptop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,839 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide rich, savory flavor and a tender, soft texture when stewed in butter.
Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs flavor while becoming tender.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory depth and melts into the layers as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the livers and vegetables cook gently and taste rounded.

The step that matters

Place the tureen in a pan of boiling water and stew until fully cooked. Gentle, indirect heat from boiling water cooks the layers evenly without scorching the bottom. Cooking too hard or too briefly can leave the livers unevenly done or the dish dry, so the layers should be cooked through steadily.

Flavor stand-ins for the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parmesan cheese, butter, chicken, liver, celery, carrot, parsnip):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Onionbetter flavor fit
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, butter, chicken, liver, celery, carrot, parsnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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