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Italian Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with browned beef, salt pork, onions, tomatoes, pepper, salt, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Italian Macaroni

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.

Make the meat sauce

  1. Cook the beef and salt pork with chopped onions in a covered kettle on low heat until browned and juices are released.

  2. Add tomatoes, pepper, and salt; simmer for 2 to 3 hours.

Assemble and bake

  1. Boil the desired amount of macaroni in water for 20 minutes.

  2. Layer boiled macaroni, meat mixture, and grated cheese in a pudding dish until filled, finishing with a layer of cheese on top.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour or until 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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beef
Provides the main meat body and rich savory flavor as it browns and releases juices.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and moisture that become the sauce during the long simmer.
Macaroni
Forms the starchy base layer that absorbs sauce and holds the casserole together.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding fat, savoriness and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Simmering the tomatoes and meat. A long, gentle simmer on low heat lets the meat become tender and the sauce thicken and concentrate. Rushing it leaves the sauce thin and the beef tough.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, tomato, pepper, 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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