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Macaroni and Fish

A baked dish of macaroni and fish with broth, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni and Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the macaroni into small pieces.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the cold boiled fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Mix the macaroni and fish together with pepper, salt, broth, and butter.

  2. Place the mixture in the oven and bake until hot and browned.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs broth and butter, giving a soft, starchy body.
Fish
Provides the main protein and flavor, forming the substance of the dish.
Broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor, keeping the mixture from drying out as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Place the mixture in the oven and bake until hot and browned. Baking heats the mixture through while the surface browns through Maillard reactions. Pulling it too early leaves it lukewarm, and leaving it too long dries it out as the broth evaporates.

“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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