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Casserole or Italian Hash

A casserole of macaroni with butter, cheese, meat, onions, seasonings, and optional tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Casserole or Italian Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, then drain.

  2. Butter a casserole dish and add the macaroni, pushing it to the sides.

  3. In the center, add the chopped cooked meat and season to taste.

Make the meat sauce

  1. Cut the raw round steak into small pieces and brown the steak pieces.

  2. Cook the steak pieces in water with onions and seasonings until tender.

  3. Add the tomatoes one hour before the meat is done.

  4. Mix the meat with the sauce before serving.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the mixture 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.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 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

Macaroni
Forms the starchy base that holds the casserole together when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the casserole dish from sticking.
Grated cheese
Melts into the dish, adding fat, savour and a binding texture.
Round steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in liquid.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture to the sauce as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Add the tomatoes one hour before the meat is done. Tomatoes added too early can make the sauce overly thin or acidic, while adding them late leaves the flavours less blended. Timing them to the end of the simmer keeps the sauce balanced and the meat tender.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cheese, meat, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cheese, meat, onion. 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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