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Tomato Sauce

A simmered tomato sauce with red pepper, vinegar, brown sugar, salt, ginger, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the tomatoes and red pepper.

  2. Add the vinegar, brown sugar, salt, ginger, cloves, and allspice.

  3. Stir well and bring to a simmer.

  4. Cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its liquid and base flavour as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps balance the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Red pepper
Adds body and a mild sweet, vegetal flavour as it softens during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Long, gentle simmering lets the tomatoes break down and the sauce thicken and concentrate. Stirring prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, sugar, ginger, clove, allspice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, sugar, ginger, clove, allspice. 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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