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Fried Macaroni

Fried macaroni is boiled macaroni mixed with eggs and flour, then fried until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in water until tender, about 20 minutes.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs and flour together.

  2. Add the cooked macaroni to the egg mixture and combine well.

Fry

  1. Heat oil or butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop tablespoons of the mixture into the pan and fry until brown.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 the bulk of each fritter and gives it a tender, chewy body.
Eggs
Bind the macaroni together and set when heated, holding the shape in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the egg mixture so it clings to the macaroni instead of running apart.

The step that matters

Dropping the mixture into the pan. If the mixture is too loose or the fat is not hot enough, the pieces spread and absorb oil rather than browning cleanly. Keeping the portions spoon-sized and the pan at medium heat helps them set and brown evenly.

“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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