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Macaroni

A macaroni dish simmered in a tomato and clear soup sauce thickened with butter and flour, finished with Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper 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

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into suitable pieces.

  2. Add the macaroni to boiling salted water and cook for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the tomatoes in a separate pot for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the tomatoes.

  3. Add the clear soup, sugar, pepper, and salt to the strained tomatoes and bring to a boil.

  4. Cream the butter and flour together.

  5. Stir the mixture into the boiling sauce until it thickens.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the macaroni with the sauce and mix well.

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. Tomato + peppertop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it a firm, chewy bite.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and fresh flavour of the sauce.
Clear soup
Adds savoury depth and liquid to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and smooths the flour-thickened sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour and a sharp umami note.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the boiling sauce. Flour lumps if added raw or unevenly. Creaming it with butter first and stirring it into hot liquid lets the starch disperse and thicken the sauce smoothly instead of clumping.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, parmesan cheese, 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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