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Florentine Macaroni

A simple macaroni dish seasoned with salt, topped with grated cheese and served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,896 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Florentine Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into three- or four-inch pieces.

  2. Cook in boiling salted water until tender.

  3. Drain through a colander and place on a hot platter.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle lightly with grated cheese.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce.

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. Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the body of the dish, and its starch softens into a tender bite as it cooks.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the pasta.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and gentle acidity that balance the starchy pasta.

The step that matters

Cook in boiling salted water until tender. Pasta keeps softening after it is drained, so pulling it when just tender prevents a mushy texture. Salted water seasons the pasta from within as it absorbs liquid.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, sauce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Welsh onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, sauce. 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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