Name: Macaroni Stew
Ingredients: 6 oz. cold boiled macaroni; 1 large Spanish onion; 1 carrot; ½ lb. tomatoes; ¼ lb. mushrooms; 2 oz. grated cheese; 1 oz. butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

Wash and prepare the vegetables, then cut them into small pieces.
Cover the vegetables with water and stew until tender, adding the butter and seasoning.

Finish

Once tender, add the macaroni cut into finger lengths and the cheese.

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.

Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,719 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni: Forms the body of the stew, soaking up liquid and adding starchy bulk.
Cheese: Melts into the stew, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Butter: Adds fat, giving the stew a richer mouthfeel and flavour.
Tomatoes: Break down as they stew, adding acidity and body to the liquid.
Mushrooms: Release moisture and savoury flavour as they cook in the stew.
Spanish onion: Softens and sweetens as it stews, forming the flavour base.

Swap the carrot

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Spinachfits about as well
Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, mushroom, cheese, 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.