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Tomatoes with Macaroni

A baked casserole of tomatoes and macaroni topped with buttered cracker crumbs and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble the dish

  1. Layer fresh or canned tomatoes in a buttered baking dish.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and bits of butter.

  3. Add a layer of cooked macaroni and repeat until the dish is full.

  4. Moisten cracker crumbs with melted butter and spread over the top.

  5. Sprinkle grated cheese over everything and bake until brown.

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. Pepper + buttertop 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 moisture and acidity that form the sauce as the dish bakes.
Cooked macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish, holding the layers together.
Cracker crumbs
Soaked in butter and spread on top, they brown and add a crisp crust.
Grated cheese
Melts over the dish and browns, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the crumb topping brown.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. The dish is done when the top is golden. Underbaking leaves the sauce thin and the crumbs pale, while overbaking can dry the macaroni and toughen the cheese.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, 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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