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Mould of Meat and Macaroni

A steamed casserole of macaroni layered with minced meat and sausage, bound with eggs and topped with sausage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,777 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mould of Meat and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Boil the macaroni until soft enough to twist but not break.

  2. Grease a pudding basin or tin mould and coat it with the macaroni, starting from the center and winding it up to the top edge.

  3. Line the bottom and sides with ½ inch thick forcemeat or sausage meat without displacing the macaroni.

Fill and steam

  1. Fill the mould with the mince, adding a beaten egg for each ½ pint.

  2. Top with more sausage meat, cover the mould, and steam for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with a little sauce or gravy poured 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. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Macaroni
Forms an edible shell around the mould, holding its shape when turned out.
Forcemeat or sausage meat
Lines the mould and covers the top, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Mince of meat, poultry, game, or fish
Forms the filling, providing the main body and savoury flavour of the casserole.
Beaten egg
Binds the mince so the filling sets firm when steamed.

The step that matters

Line the mould without displacing the macaroni. If the forcemeat or sausage meat pushes the macaroni out of place, the shell loses its even structure and may break open when the mould is filled and turned out.

“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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