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Macaroni Milanaise

Macaroni baked with tomato sauce, cheese, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni Milanaise

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Cook macaroni in boiling salted water, using 1 tablespoon of salt for 3 quarts of water, keeping the water boiling continuously.

  2. When macaroni is tender, pour off the water and add cold water to blanch and remove starchiness; let stand in cold water for 5 minutes and drain again.

Make the sauce

  1. Add seasonings and baking soda to the tomatoes and cook in a saucepan for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the tomatoes, return them to the saucepan, and thicken with butter and flour blended together.

Assemble and bake

  1. Put macaroni in a buttered baking dish, add sauce, and cover the top with cheese mixed with buttered bread crumbs; let crumbs cool before adding cheese.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until crumbs are slightly 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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, giving it a firm, chewy structure under the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide the acidic, moist base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour thicken the sauce smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the strained tomato sauce so it clings to the macaroni.
Cheese
Melts into the dish and browns on top, adding savory flavor.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the sauce's sharpness.

The step that matters

Letting the crumbs cool before adding the cheese. The step says to let the buttered crumbs cool before the cheese is added to them. Adding cheese to hot crumbs can cause it to melt and clump rather than sit as an even topping, so the top may brown unevenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, onion, cheese, parsley, butter, flour. 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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