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Steamed Macaroni

A steamed macaroni dish with eggs, butter, milk, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steamed Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, then drain in a colander.

  2. Beat the eggs until light, then mix in the butter, milk or stock, salt, pepper, and onion.

  3. Butter a double boiler and sprinkle with cracker crumbs.

Steam and serve

  1. Combine the macaroni with the egg mixture and pour into the double boiler.

  2. Top with more cracker crumbs and small bits of butter.

  3. Tie the cover of the boiler down firmly and steam for 1.5 hours.

  4. Invert the boiler and serve with tomato 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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 bulk of the dish, giving it a firm, starchy body once cooked and set.
Eggs
Set when steamed, binding the macaroni into a sliceable custard-like mass.
Milk or stock
Adds moisture that cooks into the egg mixture, keeping the dish tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, improving flavour and softness of the finished dish.

The step that matters

Tie the cover of the boiler down firmly. A loose lid lets steam escape, so the water level and heat can drop during the long steaming. The egg mixture then may not set evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk, 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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