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Macaroni Soup

A hearty soup made with macaroni, onions, tomatoes, and beef stock, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef 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 ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break macaroni into small pieces.

  2. Chop onions and tomatoes.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Drop macaroni into boiling salted water.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni.

Make the soup

  1. Add onions and tomatoes to the beef soup stock.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 hour.

  3. Add the drained macaroni to the soup.

  4. Thicken the soup with flour as for beef soup.

  5. Boil for 10 minutes.

  6. Serve.

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

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

  2. Tomato + beeftop 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).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 soup and gives it a substantial, starchy body.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during the long simmer.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and moisture, helping build the soup's flavor base.
Beef soup stock
Provides the main liquid and the beefy savory flavor of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup's liquid, giving it body as it boils.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with flour as for beef soup.. Flour must be stirred in evenly and the soup kept boiling so the starch swells and thickens without leaving lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef, flour. 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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