Skip to main content
Main

Minced Veal and Macaroni

A steamed dish of minced veal and ham with breadcrumbs, spices, egg, and macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Minced Veal and Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the ham and veal together and moisten with the gravy.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and bind well with the egg.

Line the mold

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted water until tender but not too soft.

  2. Butter a mold and line it with the macaroni cut into short lengths.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill the center with the prepared mixture, cover with a plate, and steam for 40 minutes.

  2. Turn out carefully and serve with gravy poured around the shape.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 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

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf, giving it a tender, meaty texture when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the minced meat so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it sets firm when cooked.
Macaroni
Forms an edible outer shell around the filling, giving the shape structure when turned out.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the minced meat mixture.

The step that matters

Turn out carefully. After steaming, the loaf is soft and held together mainly by the egg and crumbs. Letting it rest briefly before inverting helps it hold its shape and keeps the macaroni lining intact.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, egg, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes