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Spanish Macaroni

A canned pasta dish with macaroni, minced beef, chili peppers, onions, tomatoes, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Spanish Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the chili peppers and garlic very fine.

  2. Blanch the macaroni for 20 minutes, then drain.

Fill the cans

  1. Combine the drained macaroni with the minced beef, chopped chili peppers, garlic, butter, salt, chopped onions, and chopped tomatoes.

  2. Fill No. 1 and No. 2 cans three-quarters full with the mixture.

  3. Cover with soup stock.

  4. Exhaust the cans for 3 minutes.

Process

  1. Process No. 1 cans for 40 minutes at 230°F (110°C) and No. 2 cans for 50 minutes at 230°F (110°C).

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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 and absorbs flavor and liquid during blanching and processing.
Minced beef
Provides the main protein, adding savory flavor and a firm, meaty texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel throughout the mixture.
Chopped onions
Contributes sweetness and aroma as they soften during processing.
Chopped tomatoes
Adds acidity and moisture, building the sauce that coats the pasta.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during long heating.

The step that matters

Exhaust the cans for 3 minutes. Venting air and steam before sealing and processing helps prevent pressure buildup in the sealed cans and promotes even heat transfer, so the contents cook through consistently.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, onion, garlic. 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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