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Calabrian Macaroni

A pasta dish of macaroni topped with a tomato and ham sauce flavored with herbs and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Calabrian Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a separate pan.

  2. Fry the sliced onion until yellow.

  3. Add the chopped ham, bouquet of herbs, peeled tomatoes, and broth or water.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  6. Rub the sauce through a sieve using a potato masher.

Assemble and serve

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender.

  2. Combine the hot macaroni with sweet butter and grated Parmesan cheese in a large bowl.

  3. Serve the macaroni on a hot dish.

  4. Pour the hot tomato sauce over the 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. 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 carries the sauce and butter-cheese coating.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and body when combined with hot macaroni and butter.
Peeled tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, providing acidity, moisture and body.
Onion
Frying until yellow builds sweetness and savoury depth in the sauce.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty meat flavour to the tomato sauce.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and fat that coats the macaroni and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Rub the sauce through a sieve using a potato masher. Pushing the simmered sauce through a sieve removes the chopped ham, onion and herb solids, leaving a smooth sauce that coats the macaroni evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parmesan cheese, onion, ham, tomato, pepper, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parmesan cheese, onion, ham, tomato, pepper, parsley. 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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