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Macaroni with Tomatoes

A baked macaroni dish with tomato sauce, onions, peppers, celery, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Macaroni with Tomatoes

Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Cook macaroni in boiling salted water until very tender.

  2. Transfer macaroni to very cold water to remove starch.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat butter in a pan.

  2. Cook chopped onions until slightly yellow.

  3. Add green pepper, celery, salt, pepper, sugar, and baking soda to the onions.

  4. Cook the strained tomatoes.

  5. Add tomatoes to the onion mixture and thicken slightly if necessary.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a dish.

  2. Layer half of the macaroni.

  3. Pour half of the sauce over it.

  4. Add the remaining macaroni and sauce.

  5. Dot the top with butter.

  6. Cover with breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter.

  7. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes, or if prepared in the morning, bake for about 30 minutes 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish, holding its shape in layers as it bakes.
Onions
Provide sweetness and savory depth as they soften and turn slightly yellow.
Strained tomatoes
Supply the liquid and acidity that form the sauce coating the macaroni.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the crumb topping in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when mixed with melted butter and baked.

The step that matters

Transfer macaroni to very cold water. Chilling the cooked pasta stops residual cooking and rinses away surface starch, so the noodles stay separate and do not turn gummy when layered and baked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, celery, tomato, sugar, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, celery, tomato, sugar, bread. 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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