Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Tomato Soy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tomatoes
Slice the tomatoes without skinning them.
Sprinkle the bottom of a large tub with salt.
Layer the tomatoes in the tub.
Sprinkle ½ pint of salt and 3 sliced onions over each 2‑inch layer.
Let the mixture sit for 3 days.
Cook and strain
Transfer the tomatoes to a large iron pot.
Boil them all day, stirring constantly to prevent sticking.
The next morning, pass the mixture through a sieve. Press to extract all the liquid.
Add 1 ounce of cloves, ¼ pound of allspice, ¼ pound of whole black pepper, and ⅓ cup of Cayenne to the liquid.
Boil the mixture slowly all day.
Bottle and store
In the evening, transfer it to a suitable vessel. Cool it.
The next day, bottle it. Cork it well.
Store in a cool place during warm weather.
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.
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 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
- Ripe tomatoes
- Provide the bulk of the sauce and its main flavour and liquid.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the tomatoes and helps preserve the sauce.
- Onions
- Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce.
- Cloves
- Add warm, aromatic spice flavour during the long boil.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, peppery aroma that rounds out the spiced flavour.
- Cayenne pepper
- Adds heat that builds as the sauce cooks down.
The step that matters
Boiling the strained liquid slowly all day with constant attention. Long, gentle boiling concentrates the liquid and develops flavour, while the sauce must be stirred and kept from scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would give a burnt taste.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, clove, allspice, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Eggplantfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, allspice, 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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