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Meat with Macaroni

A casserole of mutton or veal with macaroni, ham or bacon, and forcemeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Meat with Macaroni

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the meat with pepper and chopped herbs, then pour stock over it and cover for a short time.

  2. Grease a deep dish and dredge the bottom and sides with bread crumbs.

  3. Boil the macaroni until half cooked.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the dish with forcemeat, then add a layer of ham or bacon slices.

  2. Place the meat in the dish, add more bacon slices, and top with another layer of forcemeat.

  3. Cover the dish and place it in a tin of hot water in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the tin and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Finish the macaroni in stock or sauce.

  2. Turn the meat onto a hot dish and arrange the macaroni around it.

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. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Mutton or veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks gently in stock.
Macaroni
Adds bulk and absorbs the stock and sauce, giving the dish a starchy base.
Forcemeat
Binds and moistens the layers, keeping the meat and bacon from drying out.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour and fat that enriches the meat layers.
Stock
Provides moisture that gently cooks the meat and flavours the macaroni.

The step that matters

Cooking the macaroni only until half cooked. Pasta finishes cooking in the stock or sauce and in the oven-heated dish, so fully boiling it first would leave it soft and mushy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, bread, ham):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, bread, ham. 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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