Name: Macaroni and Tomatoes
Ingredients: 2 oz. macaroni; 4 teacupfuls tinned tomatoes; 7 cups water; a little grated cheese

Why it works: Tomato and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,896 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni and Tomatoes

Ingredients

2 oz. macaroni
4 teacupfuls tinned tomatoes
7 cups water
a little grated cheese

Directions

Cook the macaroni in the water and tomatoes until tender.
Add seasoning to taste.
Serve with grated cheese and vegetables.

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.

Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,896 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: Provides the starchy body of the dish, softening as it cooks in the liquid.
Tinned tomatoes: Add moisture, acidity and flavour, and the liquid the macaroni cooks in.

“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.