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Macaroni with Mushrooms

A pasta dish of macaroni, mushrooms, bacon, onion, tomato ketchup or canned tomatoes, topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Macaroni with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried mushrooms in water for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Break the macaroni and cook it in boiling salted water for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni well when done.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the bacon until crispy, then remove it from the pan.

  2. In the bacon grease, fry the chopped onion until soft.

  3. Add the tomato ketchup or canned tomatoes and the soaked mushrooms, then let simmer for 15 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. On a large platter, grate a layer of cheese.

  2. Layer the macaroni and mushroom mixture alternately on top of the cheese until all ingredients are used.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 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

Dried mushrooms
Soaking softens them and adds earthy, savoury flavour to the mixture.
Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and soaks up flavour from the sauce.
Bacon
Its rendered fat is used to fry the onion, adding savoury, smoky flavour.
Onion
Softened in bacon fat, it adds sweetness and aromatic base flavour.
Tomato ketchup or canned tomatoes
Provides acidity and sweetness, giving the mixture its tomato flavour and moisture.
Cheese
Melts and binds the layers together, adding richness and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Drain the macaroni well when done. Excess cooking water left on the pasta dilutes the sauce and makes the layers watery and loose, so it should be drained thoroughly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, tomato, 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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