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Veal and Macaroni Shape

A steamed and baked dish of minced veal mixed with macaroni, breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal and Macaroni Shape

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the veal, removing any brown parts.

  2. Mince the ham (lean bacon or salt pork can be used).

  3. If the meat is dry, add 1 tablespoon of gravy.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, grated nutmeg, and grated lemon peel.

  5. Add the breadcrumbs and mix with the beaten eggs until it resembles forcemeat.

Line and fill the mold

  1. Butter a mold and line it with macaroni boiled until tender in salted water.

  2. Mix the remaining macaroni with the meat mixture.

  3. Fill the mold with the mixture.

Steam, dry and serve

  1. Cover with buttered paper and steam for about 1 hour.

  2. Place the mold in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1-2 minutes to dry.

  3. Carefully turn out and serve hot or cold.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the meat and breadcrumbs together and help set the mixture when cooked.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the texture so the meat stays tender rather than dense.
Veal
Provides the mild, delicate meat base that forms the body of the dish.
Macaroni
Forms a starchy lining and adds structure so the loaf holds its shape when turned out.
Boiled ham
Adds savoury flavour and a little fat to keep the meat mixture moist.
Butter
Adds richness and helps prevent the mold and paper from sticking to the mixture.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Steaming cooks the eggs and meat gently with moist heat, so the mixture sets firm without drying out. Cooking too hard or too long can make the texture tough and crumbly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, ham, butter, pepper, lemon, meat):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, ham, butter, pepper, lemon, meat. 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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