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Macaroni with Tomato

A simple pasta dish of boiled macaroni tossed in a tomato sauce made with onion, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni with Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion in butter until slightly colored.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the strained tomato and salt to make the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the boiled macaroni and reheat in a double boiler or in the oven.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Butter
Fats the onion and carries its flavor into the sauce, giving richness.
Flour
Thickens the tomato liquid into a smooth sauce as it is mixed in.
Strained tomato
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, providing acidity and body.
Boiled macaroni
Provides the starchy body of the dish, soaking up the sauce during reheating.
Chopped onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens and colors in butter.

The step that matters

Add the flour and mix well. If flour is not fully mixed into the hot butter and onion, it forms lumps that stay in the sauce. Stirring it evenly coats each particle so it dissolves smoothly when liquid is added.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour. 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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