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Macaroni Milanaise Style

A macaroni dish cooked with tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese, and seasonings, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni Milanaise Style

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in 3 quarts of boiling water with salt, pepper, and butter for about 20 minutes, or until tender.

  2. Drain the macaroni in a colander and rinse with cold water. Place the macaroni in a pan of cold water until ready to use.

Finish and serve

  1. Prepare the tomato sauce and mix it with the cooked macaroni.

  2. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and serve hot.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its chewy, tender body.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity that coat the pasta and carry its flavour.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a sharp, nutty depth when sprinkled on hot pasta.

The step that matters

Boiling the macaroni. Pasta must be cooked in plenty of rapidly boiling water so it cooks evenly and stays free of clumps. Cooking until just tender gives the best texture, since overcooked pasta turns soft and mushy.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, parmesan 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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