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Quick Tomato Macaroni Cheese

I think this is the best macaroni cheese recipe ever (even though it's a bit naughty)! I've used sweet tomatoes in my recipe as they really complement the cheese, and instead of béchamel sauce I've used single cream as it's a lot lighter. I've also topped the dish off with cheesy breadcrumbs, which give it a wonderful crunch. I think you'll laugh when you see how easy it is to make. I put it together extremely quickly by using my Magimix food processor. Don't worry if you haven't got one – you can chop it all up by hand instead and then mix it in a bowl.

By jamieoliver · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,979 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 6

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By jamieoliver. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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. Tomato + basiltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Basil + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Tomato + red winetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Garlic + basiltop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, tomato, basil, pepper, parmesan cheese, cream, red wine):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Oreganoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, tomato, basil, pepper, parmesan cheese, cream, red wine. 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).