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Macaroni and Tomatoes

A simple pasta dish of spaghetti simmered in stewed tomatoes with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni and Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the spaghetti

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.

  2. Add the spaghetti and cook until tender, bending and coiling it as it softens.

  3. Drain the spaghetti in a colander and place it in a pan of cold water for 15 minutes to blanch.

Make the tomato sauce and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Pour in the strained tomatoes and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the spaghetti, boil briefly, and serve without cutting.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Spaghetti
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce.
Stewed tomatoes
Provide moisture, acidity and the main flavour of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and tomato mixture into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps form the roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter until smooth. Flour must be cooked briefly in the fat before liquid is added; if it is not stirred well it forms lumps and the sauce can taste raw and floury.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper. 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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