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One Meal Macaroni Dish

A baked macaroni casserole with tomatoes, peppers, onions, eggs, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

One Meal Macaroni Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Place the macaroni in 2 quarts of boiling water and cook for 25 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat, drain, and rinse with cold water.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a greased baking dish, combine the macaroni, tomatoes, green pepper, onion, salt, white pepper, cayenne pepper, butter or drippings, and diced eggs.

  2. Stir well and sprinkle the cracker crumbs on top.

  3. Cover and bake for 40 minutes.

  4. Uncover and bake until the mixture is cooked through and browned on top.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk and body of the casserole, holding the other ingredients together.
Sieved tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that keep the macaroni from drying out while baking.
Eggs
Set during baking, binding the casserole into a firm, sliceable mass.
Butter or bacon or ham drippings
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping as they toast in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the first 40 minutes. Covered baking traps steam so the macaroni and tomatoes cook through and stay moist. Uncovering too early can dry the dish before the eggs set, while the browned topping needs the uncovered stage.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, onion, butter, egg. 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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