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A Timball of Maccaront and Chicken

A baked dish of macaroni, chicken, béchamel sauce, and cheese covered with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Timball of Maccaront and Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the macaroni in broth until tender.

  2. Mix in béchamel sauce, grated cheese, and chicken pieces.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a mold and coat it with bread crumbs or vermicelli.

  2. Fill the mold with the macaroni and chicken mixture.

  3. Cover with puff pastry.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Once baked, turn it out.

  2. Cut the top off.

  3. Add a little béchamel sauce on top.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

Butter and flour 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 the filling and gives the timball its body when set.
Broth
Cooks the macaroni and adds savory flavor and moisture to the filling.
Béchamel sauce
Binds the filling and keeps it moist and creamy as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts into the filling, adding richness and savory flavor.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and savory flavor within the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before filling the mold. Cooling the filling before it goes into the mold helps it hold its shape when turned out. A hot, loose mixture can slump and make the timball harder to unmold cleanly.

“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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