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Mexican Macaroni

A macaroni dish cooked with chili pepper, tomatoes, onions, lard, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mexican Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pasta

  1. Break the macaroni or spaghetti into pieces and add to boiling salted water.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes, then add the chopped chili pepper and cook until done.

Make the sauce

  1. In a frying pan, heat the lard and butter.

  2. Add the chopped tomatoes and onions; cook without frying.

  3. If the mixture is not juicy enough, add more butter and a little water.

  4. Once thoroughly cooked, pour the mixture over the macaroni.

  5. Place over low heat and stir until well combined, then serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni or spaghetti
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the sauce's flavour and moisture.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that form the base of the sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps keep the mixture juicy.
Lard
Adds fat for cooking the vegetables and carries flavour through the sauce.
Chili pepper
Adds heat and aroma to the dish.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables without frying. Cooking the tomatoes and onions gently lets them soften and release their juices into a sauce rather than browning them. If the mixture dries out, adding butter and water restores moisture so the sauce coats the pasta.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, 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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