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Italian Macaroni

A baked macaroni dish with browned beef, onions, tomatoes, pepper, salt, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Italian Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a covered kettle, cook the beef and onions on low heat until the beef is brown and releases its juices.

  2. Add the tomatoes, pepper, and salt, then simmer for 3 hours.

Assemble and bake

  1. Boil the desired amount of macaroni in water for 20 minutes.

  2. Layer the boiled macaroni, meat mixture, and grated cheese in a pudding dish until filled, finishing with a top layer of cheese.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour or until the top is a rich brown.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 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

Beef
Browning and slow simmering release juices and flavour that build the body of the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid that break down during long simmering into a thick sauce.
Macaroni
Forms the starchy base layer that holds the meat sauce and cheese together in the bake.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding richness and a golden crust.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding depth to the meat sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce for 3 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets the tomatoes and meat juices reduce and concentrate, so the sauce is thick enough to layer rather than leave the pasta watery.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, tomato, pepper, cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, tomato, pepper, cheese. 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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