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Macaroni with Tomatoes

A dish of macaroni cooked in beef soup, topped with grated cheese and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Macaroni with Tomatoes

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 with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Bring the beef soup to a boil.

  2. Add the macaroni and cook for 15 minutes, adding a little salt.

  3. Remove the macaroni, which should have absorbed most of the liquid, and place it on a flat plate.

Assemble and serve

  1. Sprinkle grated cheese generously over the macaroni.

  2. Pour a sauce made from well-boiled, strained tomatoes seasoned with salt and pepper over the macaroni.

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

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  5. Beef + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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 beef soup as it cooks.
Beef soup
Cooks the macaroni and gives it savory flavor as the pasta absorbs it.
Grated cheese
Melts and adds richness and savory flavor over the macaroni.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and a fresh, tangy flavor in the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the macaroni in the soup. Pasta cooked in a limited amount of liquid absorbs it as it softens, so the liquid must be watched and the macaroni removed once most of it has been absorbed. Overcooking leaves it soft and mushy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Tomatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cheese, 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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