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Tomato and Macaroni

A baked dish of macaroni in a tomato sauce with cheese and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato and 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 tomato sauce

  1. Cook tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, and onion until tender.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Thicken the strained mixture with flour rubbed with butter.

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Cook macaroni in plenty of water for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the cooked macaroni.

  3. Rinse the drained macaroni with cold water.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix grated cheese with the tomato sauce.

  2. Pour the cheese‑tomato sauce over the macaroni in a baking dish.

  3. Cover the dish with bread crumbs.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 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

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the sauce and provide its acidity and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the strained tomato mixture into a smoother, body-rich sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
Macaroni
Provides the starchy base that holds the sauce in the baked dish.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding savoury richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the macaroni in plenty of water. Macaroni needs enough water so the pasta can move freely and cook evenly, preventing sticking and clumping. The record's one-hour cooking time is far longer than typical pasta and may leave it overly soft, so check its texture before draining.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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