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Macaroni and Beef

A dish of boiled macaroni mixed with a tomato sauce and sliced beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Macaroni and Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the tomatoes for 10 minutes, then strain them.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  4. Stir to make a sauce with the strained tomatoes and milk.

  5. Season the sauce with pepper and salt.

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender.

  2. Cut the boiled macaroni into short pieces.

  3. Add the macaroni pieces to the sauce.

Cook the beef and serve

  1. Broil the beef steak in thin pieces.

  2. Place the broiled beef on a dish.

  3. Pour the sauce around the beef.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein and meaty bulk of the dish.
Macaroni
Adds starchy body and chewy texture to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and liquid that form the base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the melted butter as a roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the tomato sharpness.

The step that matters

Add the flour to the melted butter. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter and stirred well before liquid is added. Stirring keeps the roux smooth, and the flour starch swells on heating to thicken the sauce without lumps.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, milk, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, milk, pepper. 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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