Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Macaroni with Tomatoes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the pasta
Boil the macaroni or spaghetti until tender.
Make the tomato sauce
In a skillet, cream together the butter and flour.
Add the strained tomatoes to the butter and flour mixture, and bring to a boil.
Assemble and bake
Layer the cooked pasta in a baking dish, sprinkling grated cheese and seasoning with salt between layers.
Pour the tomato mixture over the layered macaroni and cheese.
Place the dish in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,896 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,918 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + tomatotop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,065 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
- Macaroni or spaghetti
- Forms the bulk of the dish, giving the body that the sauce and cheese are layered into.
- Grated cheese
- Melts between the pasta layers and browns on top, adding richness and savoury flavour.
- Butter
- Provides fat and, with the flour, forms the base that thickens the tomato sauce.
- Flour
- Combined with butter, it thickens the strained tomatoes into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
- Strained tomatoes
- Supply the liquid and acidity that moisten the pasta and form the sauce.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter and flour before adding tomatoes. Cooking the flour in fat before adding liquid lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than turning lumpy.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, flour):
- Chivefits better
- Potatofits better
- Mustardfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, 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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