Name: Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup salt; 1 cup vinegar; 1 cup sugar; 1 tablespoon mixed spices (e.g., cinnamon, cloves, allspice)

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,189 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

1 cup salt
1 cup vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon mixed spices (e.g., cinnamon, cloves, allspice)

Directions

Soak tomatoes in 1 cup of salt overnight.
In the morning, press tomatoes dry through a sieve.
Place tomatoes in a porcelain kettle and cover with 1 cup of vinegar.
Add 1 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of mixed spices in a muslin bag.
Stew slowly for about 1 hour, or until tomatoes are as soft as desired.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,548 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,779 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice):

Clovethe original
Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, allspice. 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).