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Tomatoes

A tomato sauce made with beef or veal, onions, thyme, and spices, simmered and finished with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine sliced cold beef or veal, cold gravy, chopped onions, thyme, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Brown the mixture over medium heat.

  3. Add peeled tomatoes and stew for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For tomato sauce, boil tomatoes with parsley, pepper, and salt for 30 minutes.

  2. Press the mixture through a colander, discarding skins and seeds.

  3. Return the sauce to heat for 10 minutes, adding butter and flour, stirring well.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Cold beef or veal
Provides the main meat body and savory flavor once browned and stewed.
Cold gravy
Adds liquid and savory depth, keeping the stewed mixture moist.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor as they cook down into the base.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity, moisture and bulk, becoming a smooth sauce once pressed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour. A small amount of flour clumps easily if not stirred in well. Starch granules swell and thicken the sauce only when they are dispersed evenly in hot liquid, so constant stirring prevents lumps.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, thyme, pepper, tomato, butter, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, thyme, pepper, tomato, butter, flour. 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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