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Macaroni Sauce for Boiled Meat

A tomato and onion sauce with ginger, mint, and pepper served over boiled meat and macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mint work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Macaroni Sauce for Boiled Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Warm the salad oil in a pan.

  2. Fry the sliced onions until translucent.

  3. Add the sliced tomatoes, green ginger, pepper, salt, and mint to the pan.

  4. Cook until the tomatoes are soft.

  5. Pour in the beef broth and heat until hot.

  6. Stir in the boiled macaroni and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce over boiled meat with macaroni arranged around it.

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. Ginger + minttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 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

Boiled macaroni
Adds starch and body, thickening the sauce and giving it a satisfying bite.
Ripe tomatoes
Provide acidity and moisture, softening into the base of the sauce as they cook.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften and turn translucent in the oil.
Beef broth
Supplies liquid and savory meaty flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until the tomatoes are soft. Cooking the tomatoes fully breaks down their structure and releases juices, so the sauce becomes smooth and mellow rather than watery and raw-tasting.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, ginger, beef, pepper. 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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