Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

Macaroni served with tomato sauce thickened with butter and flour, topped with grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Macaroni with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the macaroni

  1. Break the macaroni into pieces not over an inch in length.

  2. Stew the macaroni in hot water until tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni and heap it in a hot dish.

Make and finish the sauce

  1. Pour over the macaroni a sauce made of stewed tomatoes and stock or gravy, well seasoned.

  2. Thicken the sauce with butter mixed with flour.

  3. Sprinkle grated cheese thickly over the 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce.
Stewed tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
Stock or gravy
Adds savoury depth and liquid to the sauce.
Butter mixed with flour
Thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Grated cheese
Melts over the top, adding flavour and a savoury, rich layer.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter mixed with flour. Flour must be blended smoothly with the butter and then incorporated into the hot sauce; added in lumps or unevenly, it leaves pockets of raw flour and an uneven, pasty texture instead of a smooth, glossy sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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.

More macaroni with tomato sauce recipes

Baked 8 See all 57 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes