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Tomatoes with Macakoni

Tomato sauce thickened with flour and butter served over macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Macakoni

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Have ready one pint of ripe tomatoes stewed until tender.

  2. Thicken with one heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed smooth in a little water.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and two or three ounces of butter.

  4. Boil this sauce once.

Assemble

  1. Pour sauce over macaroni, which has been drained and arranged in a suitable dish.

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Wash, peel, cut tomatoes into thin slices and put in a kettle with enough water to cover.

  2. Add a tablespoonful of sugar and boil until you can easily pierce them with a fork.

  3. Drain and mash them.

  4. Season with butter, pepper, and salt.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

634Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
114 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chippewa Falls, Wis. Episcopal church. Ladies aid society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and tangy flavour of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Rub the flour smooth before adding it. Flour added dry or in lumps stays clumped and does not thicken the sauce evenly. Rubbing it smooth in a little water lets the starch disperse, and boiling the sauce swells the starch so it thickens fully and loses its raw floury taste.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, pepper. 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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