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Chicken with Macaroni

A casserole of chicken and macaroni simmered in tomato and Espagnole sauces, finished with lemon juice or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken with Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and macaroni

  1. Boil the chicken in stock or water with vegetables until half cooked.

  2. Cook the macaroni in salted boiling water for 15-20 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni and cut into short lengths.

  4. Cut the chicken into serving pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the tomato and Espagnole sauces in a stewpan.

  2. Add the chicken pieces to the sauces.

  3. Add the macaroni, salt, pepper, and lemon juice or vinegar to taste.

  4. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the macaroni in the center of a hot dish.

  2. Place the chicken on top.

  3. Strain the sauce over.

  4. Serve.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein; cooking it partly first keeps it from overcooking during the final simmer.
Macaroni
Forms the starchy base of the dish and holds its shape as a casserole layer.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture, acidity and body that carry the flavour of the whole dish.
Espagnole sauce
Provides a rich, thickened brown sauce that coats the chicken and macaroni.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 minutes. Sauces based on flour and stock can scorch or break at a hard boil, and the chicken can toughen and dry out. A gentle simmer lets the flavours blend while keeping the sauce smooth and the meat tender.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, sauce, pepper):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, sauce, 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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