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Timbale of Macaroni

A baked pastry shell filled with bran or flour and suet, topped with a rolled‑out paste and served with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Timbale of Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mold

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter the inside of a round or oval mold.

  3. Roll out the nouilles paste thinly and cut out decorative shapes.

  4. Arrange the shapes on the bottom and sides of the mold.

  5. Moisten the decorations with a brush dipped in water.

  6. Line the mold with short pastry, leaving it an inch above the edge.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the mold with bran or the flour and suet mixture.

  2. Wet the edge and place a circular piece of rolled‑out paste on top.

  3. Press the edges together and twist the upper ridge inward.

  4. Make a small hole in the center for ventilation.

  5. Bake for about 45 minutes, then carefully empty the mold.

Finish and serve

  1. Brush the inside clean and fill with Milanese ragout.

  2. Turn it out onto a dish, glaze it, and pour white sauce around the base.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Short pastry
Forms the sturdy outer shell that holds the timbale's shape during baking.
Nouilles paste
Rolled thin and cut into shapes, it forms the decorative pastry lining of the mold.
Bran or flour mixed with suet
Fills the mold to support the shell so it keeps its shape while baking.

The step that matters

Emptying the mold after baking. The pastry must set and firm fully in the oven before it is removed. If it is turned out while still soft, the decorated shell can crack or collapse.

“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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