Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Timbale

A baked dish of macaroni, veal or chicken, ham, bread, and spices, topped with white sauce and pickled beetroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Macaroni Timbale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Boil the macaroni in water until soft, then cut into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Grease a round mold or small bowl with butter.

  3. Line the mold with the macaroni pieces, placing them endwise.

Fill and steam

  1. In a bowl, mix minced veal or chicken, minced ham, grated bread, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Fill the center of the mold with the meat mixture.

  3. Cover the mixture and steam for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Turn out the timbale.

  2. Pour white sauce around it and garnish with pickled beetroot.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 outer shell that holds the timbale's shape when turned out.
Minced veal or chicken
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Minced ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the meat filling.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the meat mixture so it holds together.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creamy richness around the set timbale.

The step that matters

Cover the mixture and steam for 1 hour. Gentle, moist heat cooks the meat through and sets the filling without drying it out. Covering keeps steam around the mold so the surface stays moist and the mixture firms evenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, veal, ham, bread, sauce, beetroot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, ham, bread, sauce, beetroot. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes