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Maccaroni, with Tomato Sauce

A macaroni dish with butter, onions, Gruyère, Parmesan, pepper, cream, and thick tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Gruyere cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 152 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Maccaroni, with Tomato Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in water until tender.

  2. Add ½ oz of butter and a pinch of salt.

  3. Add the onion stuck with cloves and boil until tender.

  4. Drain all the water off the macaroni.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Put the macaroni in a stewpan and add ½ oz of butter.

  2. Add the grated Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses.

  3. Add a little whole pepper and stir in 2 tablespoons of cream.

  4. When the cheese forms threads, place the macaroni on a hot dish and remove the onion.

Serve

  1. Pour thick tomato sauce over the macaroni and 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Gruyere cheese + parmesan cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Macaroni (in the method)
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives the body that the sauce clings to.
Gruyère cheese
Melts into a stringy, smooth sauce that coats the pasta.
Parmesan cheese
Adds a sharp, savoury flavour and helps the cheese sauce set into threads.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cheese sauce smooth and loose.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the pasta and cheese.

The step that matters

When the cheese forms threads. Cheese sauce turns grainy or oily if overheated, because the proteins tighten and fat separates. Remove the pan from heat once the cheese has melted and turned stringy.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, gruyere cheese, parmesan cheese, pepper, cream, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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