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Mouton Au Macaroni

A baked mutton and macaroni dish flavored with curry and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Mouton Au Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni and mutton

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted water until just tender, about 20 minutes.

  2. Drain and set aside to cool.

  3. Chop the cold mutton.

  4. Mix the mutton with 1 ounce of butter, curry powder, salt, 1 beaten egg, and the milk.

  5. Cut the macaroni into ½‑inch bits.

  6. Mix lightly with the mutton.

Shape and bake

  1. Butter a pie plate or sheet of tin.

  2. Form the mixture into a neat oval mass in the center.

  3. Spread 1 ounce of butter over it.

  4. Place it in the oven.

  5. When heated, cover it with a beaten egg seasoned with a pinch of salt and 2 pinches of curry powder.

  6. Scatter crumbs over the top.

  7. Bake until brown, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove carefully to a dish and garnish with parsley.

  2. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + muttontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together814 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mutton and macaroni and set the topping as it cooks.
Macaroni
Adds body and a starchy structure that holds the mixture together.
Mutton
Provides the main savory meat flavor and bulk of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Moistens the mixture so it stays soft rather than dry.

The step that matters

Covering with the beaten egg before baking. Egg proteins set into a firm, golden layer when heated, so the topping should be spread evenly over the hot mixture; uneven coverage leaves dry or pale patches and a loose surface.

“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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