Name: Macaroni and Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pound macaroni; salt; tomato sauce

Why it works: Tomato and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,469 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Macaroni and Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

½ pound macaroni
salt
tomato sauce

Directions

Prepare

Cut the macaroni into four-inch pieces.

Cook

Boil the macaroni in salted water until covered for 15 to 20 minutes.
Drain the macaroni.

Serve

Arrange the macaroni on a hot dish.
Pour tomato sauce over the macaroni and serve immediately.

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.

Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the starchy base of the dish, giving it its body and bite once boiled.
Tomato sauce: Adds moisture, acidity and flavour over the cooked pasta.

“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.