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Spaghetti with Tomatoes

A baked spaghetti dish layered with tomato puree, parmesan, onion, and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spaghetti with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the spaghetti

  1. Cook the onion with the cloves in 2½ quarts of boiling salted water until the spaghetti is soft.

  2. Remove the onion.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and add alternate layers of spaghetti and tomato puree.

  2. Sprinkle each layer of spaghetti with grated parmesan cheese, salt, cayenne, and grated onion.

  3. Cover with buttered crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through and crumbs are browned.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

  4. Clove + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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, holding the layers together when baked.
Tomato puree
Provides moisture and a tangy, savoury base that softens the pasta as it bakes.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury depth and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Buttered crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the spaghetti until soft. Spaghetti cooked only until firm will stay stiff after baking, while over-softened pasta turns mushy in the oven. Cooking it until just tender gives a layered dish that holds its shape and keeps some texture.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, tomato, parmesan 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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