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Italian Tomato

A macaroni dish with tomato, bacon, cheese, milk, and cinnamon, baked or served without baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Italian Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Cook the macaroni until tender, then drain well.

  2. Cover the macaroni with milk, add the cheese, and boil slowly until the cheese is dissolved.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Fry the bacon in a frying pan, then pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the pan and cook until soft.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and cinnamon.

Combine and bake

  1. Combine the macaroni and tomato mixture, then bake until brown. This can also be served without baking.

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. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the milk and cheese for a creamy body.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that give the dish its main flavor.
Cheese
Melts into the milk to add richness and a savory, creamy texture.
Bacon
Its rendered fat carries flavor into the pan and adds savory depth.
Milk
Softens the macaroni and melts the cheese into a smooth coating.

The step that matters

Boil the milk and cheese slowly. Cheese proteins can turn stringy or grainy if overheated or boiled hard, so a slow simmer lets the cheese dissolve smoothly into the milk.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cheese, milk, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cheese, milk, 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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