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Cold Meat with Macaroni

A casserole of cold meat, mushrooms, macaroni, cheese, and gravy baked in a buttered mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Cold Meat with Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold meat, but not too finely.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with the chopped mushrooms.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Boil the macaroni in water until tender.

  5. Drain the macaroni.

  6. Cut the macaroni into ½ inch pieces.

Make the crust

  1. Make a paste and line a buttered mold with it.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked.

  3. Turn out the flour from the cooked paste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill with alternate layers of meat and macaroni.

  2. Sprinkle grated cheese over each layer.

  3. Pour in hot thick gravy.

  4. Return the pie to the oven until heated through.

Serve

  1. Remove from the mold.

  2. Place on a hot dish.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cold meat
Forms the main savoury filling and gives the casserole its body.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and structure, holding its shape between the layers when cut and stacked.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and an earthy flavour to the meat filling.
Grated cheese
Melts between the layers, adding richness and savoury flavour that browns lightly in the oven.
Gravy
Moistens the layered filling and carries seasoning through the casserole.

The step that matters

Return the pie to the oven until heated through. Reheating too briefly leaves the centre cold and the cheese unmelted, while too long dries the meat and macaroni. The filling needs to reach serving heat evenly after the hot gravy is added.

“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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