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Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

A simple pasta dish with tomato sauce, cheese, onion, parsley, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil a pot of water and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Add the macaroni and cook for about 20 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni in a colander.

  4. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of grated cheese over the macaroni.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tomatoes, ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, chopped onion, parsley, and lard.

  2. Simmer the sauce slowly for 2 hours, adding water if it gets too dry.

Serve

  1. Pour the tomato sauce over the macaroni before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs some of the sauce's moisture.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and acidity of the sauce.
Lard
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a richer mouthfeel.
Grated cheese
Adds savory, salty flavour and a slightly sticky body to the pasta.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that mellows as the sauce simmers.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce slowly for 2 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets water evaporate and concentrates the tomato flavour, while the sauce can scorch or dry out at the bottom of the pan if the heat is too high. Adding water as needed keeps it from thickening too far.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, tomato, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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