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Meat and Macaroni

A dish of minced beef and macaroni served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,890 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Meat and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil enough water to cover the macaroni.

  2. Add the macaroni and cook until tender.

Prepare and serve the meat

  1. Mince the beef finely and season well.

  2. In a stewpan, heat the minced meat with the stock until hot.

  3. Serve the meat on a large round of toast with the macaroni arranged around it.

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. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,627 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the savoury meat that forms the main part of the dish.
Macaroni
Provides a starchy base that fills out the dish around the meat.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the minced meat as it heats.
Powdered cinnamon
Adds a warm aroma to the meat in a small amount.

The step that matters

Heat the meat until hot. The beef is already cooked, so the aim is to warm it through evenly without drying it out. Adding the stock and keeping the meat moving helps it stay moist and stops it scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper. 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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