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Spanish Macaroni

A pasta dish with beef, onion, tomato, and chili powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into 1-inch lengths.

  2. Boil macaroni in salted water for 25 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Grind the beef and onion.

  2. Fry the beef and onion in beef drippings.

  3. Add strained tomato, salt, and chili powder; cook for a few minutes.

  4. Stir in the cooked macaroni.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the sauce's flavor and moisture.
Raw beef
Provides the savory, browned meat base of the sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness as it softens and browns with the beef.
Beef drippings
Carries heat and flavor for frying the beef and onion, adding richness.
Strained tomato
Adds moisture and acidity that combine with the meat to form the sauce.
Chili powder
Contributes warm, earthy spice aroma and flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the beef and onion in beef drippings. Browning the meat well builds deep savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Frying in batches if the pan is crowded prevents steaming, which leaves the meat gray and bland.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion. 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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