Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Au Tomato

A macaroni dish topped with a slow‑simmered tomato sauce flavored with onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 preserving kettle 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 salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, ½ small onion, 1 teaspoon parsley, and an egg-sized 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 starchy base that the sauce coats and holds.
Tomatoes
Supply the main body, acidity and liquid of the sauce.
Lard
Adds fat and richness to the sauce.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and a salty, rich note to the pasta.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce slowly for 2 hours. Long, gentle simmering lets the tomatoes break down and thicken while mellowing their acidity. Too hot a heat can scorch the sauce on the bottom, so stirring and adding water when it dries out keeps it smooth.

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.

More macaroni with tomato sauce recipes

Baked 8 See all 57 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes