Name: Wine Sauce
Ingredients: ⅓ cup port; ⅓ cup walnut catsup; ⅓ cup tomato catsup; 1 onion, chopped; 2 teaspoons curry powder

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Combine port, walnut catsup, tomato catsup, chopped onion, and curry powder in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool.

Store

Bottle the sauce and keep it well corked.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Walnut + tomatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together498 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Walnut + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,771 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Port: Adds sweetness and wine-based depth to the sauce's flavour.
Walnut catsup: Contributes a dark, savoury, slightly sweet flavour base.
Tomato catsup: Adds acidity and tomato sweetness that balance the sauce.
Onion: Provides savoury aromatic flavour that softens during simmering.
Curry powder: Supplies warm, aromatic spice notes that carry through the sauce.