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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, shallots, onion, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, mace, and espagnole, simmered and seasoned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,476 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze out the juice and seeds.

  2. Melt the tomatoes in a stewpan.

Flavour and strain

  1. Add the shallots, onion, clove, thyme, bay leaf, and mace.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Mix in a few spoonfuls of espagnole sauce, salt, and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil for 20 minutes and serve.

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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,370 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and bright acidity of the sauce.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and savory depth as they soften in the sauce.
Onion
Contributes savory flavour and body as it cooks down with the tomatoes.
Espagnole sauce
Adds richness and body, deepening the sauce's savory flavour.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked tomatoes and aromatics through a fine sieve removes seeds and skins and gives the sauce its smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce grainy.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, shallot, onion, clove, thyme, sauce, pepper):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, shallot, onion, clove, thyme, sauce, pepper. 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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