Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Savory Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and render
Cut bacon or pork into small pieces if using.
Heat the meat in a pan until crisp but not burned.
Cook the sauce
In the rendered fat, cook the chopped onion and pepper until soft, being careful not to burn them.
Add the tomato juice and cook until the mixture reduces to 1 cup.
Season with salt and stir in optional ingredients if desired.
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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Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,381 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Tomato + caperstop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together568 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 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
- Salt pork, bacon, or sausage
- Supplies fat for cooking the vegetables and adds savory, browned flavor.
- Onion
- Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce.
- Red or green pepper
- Softens as it cooks, adding mild sweetness and fresh vegetable flavor.
- Thick tomato juice
- Forms the sauce base; reducing it concentrates its flavor and thickens the liquid.
The step that matters
Reducing the tomato juice. Cooking the tomato juice down concentrates its sugars and acids and thickens it. Stopping too early leaves a thin, flat sauce, while over-reducing can scorch the bottom of the pan and turn the flavor bitter.
Swap the capers
The recipe marks capers as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, pepper, tomato):
- Garlicfits better
- Thymefits better
- Cuminfits better
- Capersthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, pepper, tomato. 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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