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Macaroni with Tomatoes

A simple pasta dish cooked with tomatoes, onion, garlic, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Macaroni with Tomatoes

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Macaroni with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni in the boiling water for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, combine the onion, garlic, tomatoes, and butter.

Combine and finish

  1. Add the cooked macaroni to the mixture and boil for an additional 10 minutes.

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the starchy body of the dish, absorbing the tomato sauce as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity, forming the sauce that coats the pasta.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the sauce feel smooth and well-rounded.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as the base flavor of the sauce.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that deepens the savory flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the cooked macaroni to the mixture and boil for an additional 10 minutes. The pasta keeps absorbing liquid while it simmers in the sauce, so it can become dry or mushy if the heat or timing is off. Watch the sauce consistency and texture during this final boil.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, garlic, butter. 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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