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A baked dish of spaghetti, force-meat, boiled macaroni, and cheese, poached in hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and cheese work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 564 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Cookery Up-to-date

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a dome-shaped mold.

  2. Wind the spaghetti around the mold.

  3. Secure it with a layer of force-meat.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the mold with boiled macaroni and cheese.

  2. Make a thick layer of force-meat for stability.

  3. Cover with greased paper.

  4. Place in a pan of hot water.

  5. Poach in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for thirty minutes.

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. Meat + cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together564 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spaghetti
Forms the outer shell that holds the pie's shape when unmolded.
Force-meat
Binds the spaghetti and filling and gives a firm, stable layer.
Boiled macaroni
Forms the bulk of the filling, adding body and soft texture.
Cheese
Melts into the filling, adding richness and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Poach in a water bath. The pan of hot water keeps the oven heat gentle, so the filling sets evenly without the outside overcooking or drying. Too much direct heat can make the meat layer tough and cause the cheese to separate.

“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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