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Cold Meat and Scrap Cookery

A cold pasta dish made with cooked pipe macaroni, white sauce, cheese, herbs, and served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cold Meat and Scrap Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the macaroni with enough plain white sauce to create a thick mixture.

  2. Add the grated cheese, herbs, and seasoning; stir until the cheese is melted.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil before adding the macaroni, then reduce heat.

  4. Beat the egg yolk and stir it in gradually; keep the pan near the heat without boiling.

  5. Squeeze in lemon juice to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve on a round of toast or fried bread, with cooked vegetables or eggs as desired.

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

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Adds bulk and a tender-chewy bite that holds the thick sauce.
Plain white sauce
Provides the creamy base and moisture that coats the pasta.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury richness and melts into the sauce for body.
Raw egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce as its proteins gently set with heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy flavours.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk without boiling. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so if the sauce boils after the yolk goes in, it can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring the yolk in gradually and keeping the pan hot but below boiling keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, cheese, egg, bread):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, egg, bread. 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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