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Macaroni Anx Anchois

A pasta dish of macaroni tossed with anchovies, capers, olives, butter, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Macaroni Anx Anchois

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, combine garlic, shallot, anchovies, capers, and olives.

  2. Add butter and fry gently until garlic and shallot begin to brown.

Combine and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan with cooked macaroni.

  2. Mix in grated cheese and stir well.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a salty, savoury backbone that flavours the whole dish.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and fat to coat the macaroni.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma, and browning deepens its flavour when fried gently.
Shallot
Adds mild sweetness and aroma once softened and lightly browned in butter.
Grated cheese
Melts into the warm macaroni to add savoury richness and help bind the dish.
Macaroni
Serves as the starchy base that carries the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry gently until garlic and shallot begin to brown. Garlic and shallot scorch quickly and turn bitter if the heat is too high, while gentle frying softens them and builds sweet, savoury flavour through browning.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, shallot, capers, olive, butter, cheese):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, shallot, capers, olive, butter, cheese. 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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