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Tomatoes with Macaroni

A tomato sauce made with butter, pepper, salt, stock, and grated cheese, served over cooked macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomatoes with Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Cut the tomatoes into pieces and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add the butter, pepper, salt, and stock or gravy.

  3. Stir over heat until reduced to a pulp.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress the cooked macaroni with the sauce and top with plenty of grated cheese.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and acidic, fruity flavour of the sauce as they break down into a pulp.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the sharpness of the tomatoes.
Macaroni
Forms the base of the dish, carrying the sauce and cheese.
Cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a melting, rich texture over the pasta.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce to a pulp. Stirring over heat drives off water so the tomatoes thicken and concentrate in flavour. If the heat is too low the sauce stays watery, and if it is too high it can scorch on the base of the pan.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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