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Macaroni, Etc

Fried balls of macaroni mixed with milk, egg yolk, mushrooms or truffles, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the milk until smooth.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk and chopped truffles or mushrooms.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Add enough cooked macaroni to absorb the sauce and let it cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into small balls with floured hands.

  2. Dip the balls in beaten egg, then coat with white breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot, garnished with fried parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + truffletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,604 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Milk + truffletop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together177 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

Milk
Forms the sauce base that the macaroni absorbs and binds around.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps bind the mixture as it cools and sets.
Cooked macaroni
Provides the bulk and body of the croquette filling.
Beaten egg
Acts as a coating that helps breadcrumbs adhere before frying.
White breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. The sauce must be thick and set enough to hold its shape; shaping it while warm and loose makes the balls likely to break or leak during frying.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, truffle, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, truffle, pepper. 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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