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Macaroni Italiana

A pasta dish with beef, tomatoes, mushrooms, and cheese in a savory sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Macaroni Italiana

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the chopped salt pork in butter and olive oil in an iron stew pan until browned.

  2. Add the chopped soup vegetables and onion to the pan. Stir constantly to avoid scorching.

  3. Add the beef and cook for about 30 minutes, turning frequently.

  4. Stir in the tomatoes with their juice and let the mixture stew slowly.

  5. Wash the dry mushrooms. Soak the mushrooms in water until tender, then add them to the stew.

  6. Cook everything for 2 to 2.5 hours, adding water to make 3 cups of sauce.

  7. Remove the meat from the stew.

Cook the macaroni and serve

  1. Boil salted water in a large pot and cook the macaroni for at least 20 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni and place it on a flat platter.

  3. Layer with grated cheese and gravy.

  4. Serve with good claret.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  3. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, slow stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, building the body of the sauce as it stews.
Dry mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and chew once soaked and simmered in the sauce.
Macaroni
Forms the starchy base that the sauce and cheese are layered over.
Grated edam cheese
Melts over the hot pasta and sauce, adding richness and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Cook everything for 2 to 2.5 hours, adding water to make 3 cups of sauce. Slow simmering breaks down the connective tissue in rump beef so it becomes tender, while the gentle heat lets the sauce reduce and thicken without scorching. Keep the heat low and stir so the bottom does not burn.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, garlic, mushroom, butter, egg, pork):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, garlic, mushroom, butter, egg, pork. 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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