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Macaroni — Continued

A baked macaroni dish with chopped meat, ham or bacon, onion, spices, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Macaroni — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling water for 15 minutes, then drain and let cool.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped meat, ham or bacon, onion, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  3. Butter the inside of a pudding basin.

  4. Cut the macaroni into ½ inch pieces.

Assemble and boil

  1. Stick the macaroni pieces upright in the basin, filling it closely.

  2. Fill the basin with the meat mixture.

  3. Top with the remaining macaroni.

  4. Tie a floured cloth over the basin.

  5. Boil for 1 hour.

  6. Remove from the saucepan 5 minutes before turning out.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with a small amount of gravy in the dish and extra gravy on the side.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sauce and butter 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 structure of the casserole, holding its shape when turned out of the basin.
Cold cooked meat
Provides the main savoury filling and bulk of the dish.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky flavour to the meat filling.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the filling as it cooks.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the filling and to the serving.

The step that matters

Stick the macaroni pieces upright in the basin, filling it closely.. Packing the macaroni tightly keeps it standing against the basin wall, so the casserole holds its shape when turned out. Loose pieces can collapse and let the filling spill.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, pepper, ketchup, sauce, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, pepper, ketchup, sauce, butter. 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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