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Macaroni Sauce

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Macaroni Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scrape the carrot and peel the onion.

  2. In a saucepan, combine veal, ham, allspice, cloves, carrot, onion, bay leaves, tomatoes, salt, black pepper, and mace.

  3. Boil the mixture until done, stirring carefully.

  4. Strain the sauce and thicken it by rubbing 2 teaspoons of flour with the butter, then stir it in.

  5. Let the sauce simmer until it reaches the consistency of custard.

  6. Heat the sherry wine and pour it into the sauce.

  7. Boil the macaroni for 20 minutes.

  8. In a dish, layer macaroni, grated parmesan cheese, and some sauce. Repeat layers, finishing with cheese on top.

  9. Serve hot.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, allspice, clove, carrot, tomato, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, allspice, clove, carrot, tomato, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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