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Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

A macaroni dish topped with a tomato sauce made from butter, onion, parsley, flour, and tomatoes.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the macaroni in well salted water until cooked, then drain it in a colander.

  2. In a hot dish, layer the macaroni and sauce alternately, with sauce on top.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  4. Add the minced onion, chopped parsley, and black pepper; cook for 8 minutes.

  5. Stir in the flour and a little boiling water; cook for another 8 minutes.

  6. Add the strained tomatoes to the mixture, cook briefly, and then strain the sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 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 starchy base that the sauce is layered over and clings to.
Butter
Provides fat that carries flavor and starts the sauce base.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding aroma to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Strained tomatoes
Supply the main liquid, body, and acidity of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and a little boiling water; cook for another 8 minutes.. Adding flour to hot fat and liquid while stirring prevents lumps, and cooking it through removes the raw flour taste and lets the starch thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, onion, parsley, pepper, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, onion, parsley, pepper, flour. 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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