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Stewed Macaroni

A hearty dish of macaroni simmered in a tomato and beef sauce, served with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef and macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into 1-inch lengths and stew in boiling water for 20 minutes or until tender.

  2. Stew the beef strips in cold water for 30 minutes in a separate pot.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the minced onion and sliced tomatoes to the beef and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the sauce through a colander, discarding the meat, and return the liquid to the saucepan.

  3. Add the butter, salt, and pepper to the sauce and simmer until ready to serve.

Assemble and serve

  1. Drain the macaroni well, sprinkle lightly with salt, and place it in a serving dish.

  2. Pour the tomato sauce over the macaroni and cover it.

  3. Let it stand in a warm place for 10 minutes before serving.

  4. Serve with grated cheese on the side.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the starchy base that soaks up the sauce and gives the dish its body.
Beef
Simmered in water to release flavour into the broth that becomes the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid that form the body of the tomato sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce after adding butter. Butter is added to a sauce that is still simmering, so it should be kept at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Vigorous boiling can cause the fat to separate and make the sauce look greasy and broken.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, 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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