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Macaroni and Tomato

A simple pasta dish with macaroni and a tomato-based white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Macaroni and Tomato

Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Macaroni and Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break macaroni into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Cook in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender.

  3. Drain and rinse macaroni with cold water.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Cook tomatoes with water and seasonings for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the tomato mixture.

Make the white sauce and combine

  1. Melt butter, then add flour.

  2. Gradually whisk in the strained tomato mixture.

  3. Combine the white sauce with the macaroni.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Macaroni
Provides the starchy pasta body that the sauce coats and clings to.
Tomatoes
Supply the main flavor, acidity and liquid of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the melted butter and liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and helps form the flour base of the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the tomato's acidity with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually whisk in the strained tomato mixture. Flour starch needs to be evenly dispersed in the fat before and during the addition of liquid. Adding the liquid slowly while whisking prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sugar, butter, 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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