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Tomatoes Stuffed with Macaroni

A baked dish of tomatoes filled with a macaroni and cheese sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tomatoes Stuffed with Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. Boil the macaroni in salted water for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni.

  4. Cool the macaroni in cold water until needed.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Blend the butter and flour.

  2. Add the milk and stir until smooth.

  3. Season the sauce with salt and cayenne.

  4. Stir in the grated cheese and cooked macaroni.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the prepared tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle additional grated cheese on top.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the bulk and starchy body that holds the stuffing together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving creaminess once thickened.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and, when melted, a stretchy, binding richness.

The step that matters

Make the sauce smooth before adding the macaroni. Flour must be blended fully into the butter and milk added gradually while stirring, so starch hydrates evenly. Lumps stay unthickened and the sauce turns grainy instead of creamy and cohesive.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, pepper, cheese):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper, cheese. 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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