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Macaroni Milanaise

A pasta dish of macaroni in a tomato sauce with herbs, pepper, and optional peppers, mushrooms, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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

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.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Cook the macaroni in salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni and cover with cold water for at least 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, cook the tomatoes with bay leaf, mace, onion, cloves, parsley, salt, and pepper for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the tomato mixture.

  3. Thicken the strained mixture with the flour and butter blended together.

Assemble and bake

  1. Drain the macaroni again.

  2. Mix the macaroni with the sauce.

  3. Add diced green peppers and boiled mushrooms to the mixture.

  4. Optionally sprinkle grated cheese on top.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 body of the dish, absorbing the sauce and holding its shape when baked.
Tomatoes
Provide the main sauce base, adding acidity and savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the strained tomato mixture into a cohesive sauce.
Butter
Blends with the flour to enrich the sauce and add fat for smoothness.
Green peppers
Add crisp texture and a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Thicken the strained mixture with the flour and butter blended together.. Flour must be blended with butter before adding so it disperses evenly without lumps. Stirring the mixture as it heats lets starch swell and gelatinize, giving the sauce body.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

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