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An Italian Cook's Macaroni

A macaroni dish with beef, onion, carrot, tomatoes, and Swiss cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

An Italian Cook's Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a pot.

  2. Fry the onion and carrot until softened.

  3. Add the beef and stir until browned.

  4. Mix in the tomatoes, bay leaves, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  5. Let it stew slowly for at least 2 hours until the sauce thickens.

  6. Strain the sauce through a sieve to remove the meat.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the macaroni.

  3. In a large deep dish, combine the macaroni with the sauce and Swiss cheese. Mix thoroughly and serve hot.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Beef
Browns for savory flavor, then stews until tender in the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide the acidic, liquid base that becomes the sauce as it stews.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the base flavor of the sauce.
Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing sauce and holding it on the fork.
Swiss cheese
Melts into the hot macaroni and sauce, adding richness and creamy body.

The step that matters

Long slow stew of the sauce. Stewing gently for at least two hours lets the tough beef become tender and the tomato liquid reduce and thicken. Rushing it leaves chewy meat and a thin sauce that will not coat the pasta well.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, butter, beef, tomato, pepper, swiss cheese):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, butter, beef, tomato, pepper, swiss 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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