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Sauce

Tomato Soy

A tomato-based sauce with vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, mustard, and cayenne pepper, simmered for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine tomatoes, vinegar, and sugar in a large pot.

  2. Add cinnamon, cloves, English mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 hours.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the sauce, softening and thickening as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the liquid reduces, helps give the sauce a thick, glossy texture.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma that defines the sauce's flavour.
Cloves
Contributes a strong, warm, pungent aroma that carries through the long simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering for 3 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets the tomatoes break down and the liquid reduce into a thick sauce. Sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pot if heat is too high or the sauce is not stirred, so keep the heat low and stir regularly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove, mustard, 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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