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Macaroni Pudding

A baked macaroni dish layered with seasoned forcemeat, chicken or sweetbreads, and topped with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Macaroni Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Parboil the macaroni in water until slightly tender.

  2. Boil the macaroni in milk until fully tender.

Assemble the mold

  1. Butter a mold and wind the macaroni around it.

  2. Add a layer of highly seasoned forcemeat.

  3. Add a fricassee of small pieces of chicken or sweetbreads.

  4. Fill the mold with more macaroni and top with another layer of forcemeat.

  5. Cover with a piece of white paper and place the mold's cover on top.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan of boiling water and simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with white sauce poured over it. Optionally, add mushrooms with the fricassee.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  4. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of the pudding and holds its shape when set.
Milk
Cooks the macaroni to tenderness and adds richness and a soft texture.
Butter
Greases the mold so the pudding releases cleanly and adds richness.
Forcemeat
Adds seasoned, savory layers that bind and moisten the pudding.
Cooked chicken or sweetbreads
Provides the meaty filling in the fricassee, adding savory flavor and tenderness.

The step that matters

Simmer gently in the water bath. Boiling vigorously can make the pudding rise unevenly and form holes or a rubbery texture. Gentle simmering lets the forcemeat and macaroni set evenly as the proteins firm slowly.

“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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