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Macaroni

A macaroni dish simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with tomatoes, onions, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the macaroni in cold water.

  2. In a large pot, bring 1 quart of water to a rapid boil and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Add the macaroni and cook for 20 to 30 minutes until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and mix in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the chopped onion or onion juice and canned tomatoes to the mixture.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley, and stew for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce and stir in the grated cheese.

Serve

  1. Pour the cheese sauce over the cooked macaroni 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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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, starchy body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the flour form a smooth base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and creates a smooth, body-giving base for the sauce.
Canned tomatoes
Add liquid, acidity and flavor to the sauce as it stews.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness and helps thicken the sauce as it melts in.

The step that matters

Mix the flour into the melted butter until smooth. Cooking flour in fat forms a roux. If the flour is not fully blended, lumps form and the sauce stays grainy instead of thickening evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, tomato, pepper, parsley, 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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