Name: Timbale of Macaroni, a LA Mazarin
Ingredients: 1 pound macaroni; 2 quarts water; 1 tablespoon butter; 8 peppercorns; ¼ teaspoon salt; butter for greasing the mold; chicken quenelle force-meat

Why it works: Chicken and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,449 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Timbale of Macaroni, a LA Mazarin

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the macaroni in 2 quarts of water with butter, peppercorns, and salt until done.
Drain the macaroni and let it cool on a napkin.
Grease the inside of a round, oval, or square mold with butter.
Cut the macaroni into half-inch lengths and cover the bottom of the mold with them, placing them on end.
Add a thick layer of chicken quenelle force-meat on top of the macaroni.
Line the sides of the mold with more macaroni in the same way.

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.

Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,449 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).