Name: Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: Tomatoes; Butter; Coarse sea salt; ½ onion, chopped finely; Grated bread crumbs; Sugar to taste

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,232 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Strain the tomatoes

Wash and boil the tomatoes without peeling until done.
Pass the tomatoes through a sieve.
Return the mixture to the stove.

Season and finish

Add butter, coarse sea salt, chopped onion, and grated bread crumbs, then mix well.
Add sugar to taste.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together8,676 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Form the body and main flavour of the sauce.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Onion: Adds aromatic savoury flavour to the sauce.
Grated bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and help thicken the sauce.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the tomatoes' acidity.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, bread, sugar):

Capsicumbetter flavor fit
Potatobetter flavor fit
Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, bread, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.