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Macaroni Au Tomato

A macaroni dish topped with a slow‑simmered tomato sauce containing onion, parsley, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Au Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the macaroni and salt.

  2. Cook for about 20 minutes or until tender, then drain in a colander.

  3. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the drained macaroni.

Make the sauce

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

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

Serve

  1. Pour the strained 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.

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 little of the sauce, giving body to each serving.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the sauce as they reduce during simmering.
Lard
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the sauce a rounder, richer mouthfeel.
Grated cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and fat that melts slightly onto the warm macaroni.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the simmering tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce slowly for 2 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets water evaporate so the tomatoes concentrate and sweeten. Too little water loss leaves the sauce thin, while too hard a boil can scorch the bottom of the pan, so stirring and adding water when dry matters.

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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