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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, onions, sugar, mustard, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,169 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Sprinkle the sliced tomatoes and onions.

  3. Let them drain in a basket overnight.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the sugar, white mustard seed, mustard, mace, cloves, pepper, and celery seed.

  2. Cover everything with strong vinegar and cook until tender.

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.

  1. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,259 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply its main body and flavor.
Onions
Add savory bulk and sweetness that mellows as the sauce cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Strong vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and sharpens its flavor.

The step that matters

Cook until tender. Cooking long enough softens the tomatoes and onions and lets the vinegar and spices blend. Stopping early leaves a raw, sharp taste and a chunky texture.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, sugar, mustard, clove, pepper, celery):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Allspicebetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, sugar, mustard, clove, pepper, celery. 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.

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