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
Directions
Cook the macaroni
Cut the macaroni into four-inch pieces.
Boil salted water in a pot and add the macaroni.
Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until tender, then drain.
Serve
Arrange the macaroni on a hot dish.
Pour tomato sauce over the macaroni and serve immediately.
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.
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Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 bulk of the dish, providing the starchy body that the sauce coats.
- Tomato sauce
- Adds moisture, acidity and flavour that coat the cooked pasta.
The step that matters
Drain the macaroni after it is tender. Cooked pasta left wet or overcooked turns soft and sticky, and excess water thins the tomato sauce poured over it.
“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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