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Beef with Macaroni Border

A dish of cooked beef and macaroni layered with tomato sauce, seasoned with salt and pepper, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Beef with Macaroni Border

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the tomato sauce in half.

  2. Add the beef to one half of the sauce and the macaroni to the other half.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat both mixtures over medium heat, stirring until steaming hot.

  2. Season with salt and pepper if necessary.

  3. Turn the macaroni out onto a warmed platter, spreading it to form a circle.

  4. Place the beef mixture in the center and serve hot.

  5. If desired, sprinkle chopped parsley 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.

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. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato sauce
Provides moisture and acidity, carrying the heat evenly through the beef and macaroni.
Cooked beef
Supplies the savoury, meaty main element of the dish.
Boiled macaroni
Forms the base ring on the platter and absorbs some of the sauce.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, sauce, pepper):

  1. Oreganofits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, sauce, pepper. 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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