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Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

A simple pasta dish of boiled macaroni topped with tomato sauce and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

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 with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt.

  2. Break the macaroni into pieces and add to the boiling water.

  3. Boil rapidly for 25 minutes.

Season and serve

  1. Drain the water and season the macaroni with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Pour 1 pint of tomato sauce over the macaroni and serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Macaroni
Forms the starchy base that the sauce coats and clings to.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the macaroni a smoother mouthfeel.
Tomato sauce
Provides moisture, acidity and savory flavor over the pasta.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sauce. 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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