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Macaroni Au Tomato

A pasta dish of macaroni topped with a slow‑cooked tomato sauce and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Macaroni Au Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil 1 pound of macaroni in a pot half-filled with boiling water and ½ teaspoon of salt for about 20 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni in a colander and place it on a dish.

  3. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of grated cheese over the macaroni.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Prepare the tomato sauce by combining 1 quart of tomatoes, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of pepper, ½ small onion, 1 teaspoon of parsley, and a piece of lard in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the sauce slowly for 2 hours, adding water if it gets too dry.

Serve

  1. Pour the strained tomato sauce over the macaroni before serving.

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

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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 flavour from the sauce as it sits.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and acidity of the sauce.
Lard
Adds fat that gives the sauce richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a little richness to the pasta.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce slowly for 2 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates excess water and concentrates the tomato flavour, while the sauce can scorch or stick if it runs dry, so adding water as needed keeps it from burning.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, tomato, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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