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Macaroni Pudding

A baked macaroni and bread pudding flavored with herbs, lemon peel, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Macaroni Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the macaroni.

  2. Line a buttered pint basin with the parboiled macaroni.

  3. Soak the bread in cold water, then squeeze it dry.

Make and fill

  1. Mix the dry bread with the remaining ingredients, including any leftover macaroni cut into pieces.

  2. Fill the basin with the mixture, then press it down.

  3. Cover the basin with buttered paper.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for about 1½ hours.

  2. Serve hot with white or brown sauce.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the lining and pieces of the pudding, giving it body and a firm bite.
Bread
Soaked and squeezed, it binds the mixture and gives a soft, moist crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding tender and helping it release from the basin.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when steamed and sliced.

The step that matters

Squeezing the soaked bread dry. Excess water would make the mixture soggy and loose, so it would not hold its shape or set firmly when steamed.

“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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