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Boiled Macaroni with Cheese

Macaroni served in a tomato sauce thickened with butter and flour, with ham, and grated Parmesan and Gruyère cheese served on the side.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Boiled Macaroni with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat until browned but not burned.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in enough boiling tomato juice to blend.

  3. Pour this mixture into a saucepan with tomatoes and stir until smooth.

  4. Add ham and boil for about 10 minutes.

Cook and combine

  1. In a separate pot, boil macaroni in salted water for about 20 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni thoroughly and add it to the sauce.

  3. Let it simmer gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.

Serve

  1. Serve in a deep dish.

  2. Serve grated Parmesan and Gruyère cheese on the side.

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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux, adding richness and a nutty flavour when browned.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the sauce.
Boiling tomato juice
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding acidity and tomato flavour.
Macaroni (in the method)
Provides the starchy body of the dish, soaking up the sauce as it simmers.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the finished dish at the table.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour. The roux must be cooked until lightly browned but not burned. Undercooked roux leaves a raw floury taste and weaker thickening, while scorched roux turns bitter and dark.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, ham, pepper, parmesan cheese, cheese):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ham, pepper, parmesan cheese, cheese. 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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