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Macaroni Au Tomato

A macaroni dish topped with a slow‑cooked tomato sauce flavored with onion, parsley, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Macaroni Au Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil 1 pound of macaroni in a kettle half filled with boiling water and ½ teaspoon of salt for about 20 minutes or until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni in a colander and place it on a dish.

  3. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of grated cheese over the macaroni.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Prepare the tomato sauce by combining 1 quart of tomatoes, salt, pepper, ½ small onion, 1 teaspoon of parsley, and the lard in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the sauce slowly for 2 hours, adding water if it gets too dry.

Serve

  1. Pour the strained tomato sauce over the macaroni before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the sauce as its starch structure stays firm when cooked until tender.
Tomatoes
Provide the main liquid and acidity that form the body of the sauce.
Lard
Adds fat that gives the sauce a richer mouthfeel and rounds its flavour.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a little fat to the dish.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the simmered tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce slowly for 2 hours. Long, gentle simmering lets the tomatoes thicken and their flavour concentrate. Without enough liquid the sauce can scorch or dry out, which is why water is added when it gets too dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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