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Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce

A simple pasta dish of boiled spaghetti tossed in brown butter and tomato sauce, optionally topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the spaghetti

  1. Break the spaghetti into boiling water and cook for 30 minutes or until tender.

  2. Strain the spaghetti and cover it with cold water.

Finish and serve

  1. In a frying pan, heat the brown butter and add the spaghetti for a few minutes.

  2. Pour the tomato sauce over the spaghetti and serve hot.

  3. Sprinkle grated cheese on top if desired.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Minnesota spaghetti
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives a firm, chewy texture.
Brown butter
Adds fat and a nutty, toasted flavour that coats the pasta.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture, acidity and savoury flavour to the pasta.

The step that matters

Covering the strained spaghetti with cold water. Cold water stops the pasta from continuing to cook and soften after straining, and it helps keep the strands from sticking together.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, cheese):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, cheese. 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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