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Spaghetti and Meat Balls

A pasta dish with tomato sauce, green pepper, onions, and meatballs served over spaghetti.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spaghetti and Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the meatballs

  1. Combine hamburger steak, parsley, egg, bread crumbs, chopped onion, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Roll the mixture into small balls.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine tomatoes, green pepper, chopped onion, bay leaves, and water in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

  3. Press the sauce through a colander and return it to the pot.

  4. Boil the sauce again.

  5. Add butter and seasoning.

  6. Add the meatballs to the sauce.

  7. Simmer gently for 40 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in another pot.

  2. Add salt and spaghetti, cooking for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the spaghetti.

  4. Pour the tomato sauce with meatballs over the spaghetti.

  5. Serve hot with grated Roman 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hamburger steak
Forms the meatballs and provides the main meaty body and richness.
Egg
Binds the meatball mixture so the balls hold their shape while cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and keep the meatballs tender rather than dense.
Tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, giving body, acidity and flavour.
Spaghetti
Serves as the starch base that carries the sauce and meatballs.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 40 minutes. A gentle simmer lets the meatballs cook through and firm up without breaking apart or toughening. A hard boil can crumble them and make the meat dry and tough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, egg, bread, pepper, tomato, 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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