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Beef Timbale with Macaroni

A steamed timbale of beef and macaroni with onion juice, parsley, bread crumbs, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Timbale with Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the macaroni whole in boiling salted water until tender.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, onion juice, parsley, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, egg, and enough stock to make a mixture that packs easily.

Assemble and steam

  1. Coil the cooked macaroni around the inside of a greased timbale mold.

  2. Fill the mold with the meat mixture and cover with greased paper.

  3. Steam for 30 minutes.

Unmold and serve

  1. Unmold, garnish with parsley, and serve with tomato or white 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms a firm outer shell around the meat mixture once coiled and set.
Cooked meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the timbale.
Egg
Binds the meat and crumbs so the mixture holds its shape when unmolded.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together and stay tender.

The step that matters

Packing the meat mixture. Enough stock must be added so the mixture packs easily without being wet. Too little leaves it crumbly and prone to falling apart when unmolded, while too much makes it soggy and loose, and the egg can then fail to set it firmly during steaming.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, parsley, bread, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, parsley, bread, pepper, egg. 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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