Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni

A creamy macaroni dish with onion, mushrooms, butter, egg yolks, stock, cream, and truffle garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the macaroni in salted water until tender, then drain.

  2. In a bowl, pound the onion and mushrooms until smooth.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and mace, then mix in butter and egg yolks without making it too liquid.

  4. Combine the mixture with white stock and cream in a stew pan, heating gently without boiling.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once the macaroni is cooked, turn it out onto a hot dish, cut off the crust, and fill the space with the mixture.

  2. Garnish with truffles and serve.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Macaroni
Forms the tender pasta base that holds the creamy mushroom filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and thicken it gently as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the filling.
White stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the mixture.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body, softening the filling's texture.
Mushrooms
Provide earthy flavour and body to the pounded filling.

The step that matters

Heating the filling gently without boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle when they get too hot, so the mixture would turn grainy instead of smooth and thick. Keeping the heat gentle lets the yolks thicken it evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mushroom, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mushroom, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes