Name: Lamb Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint claret wine; 1 glass jelly (grape or currant); 1 pint tomato ketchup; 1 cup butter; 1 teaspoon red pepper; 1 teaspoon allspice

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lamb Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the jelly, tomato ketchup, butter, red pepper, and allspice.
Heat the mixture gently without boiling.
Just before serving, stir in the claret wine and 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.

Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Wine + grapetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together819 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-p-menthene-8-thiol (grapefruit).
Grape + tomatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,002 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Wine + tomatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,759 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

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, tomato, ketchup, butter, pepper, allspice):

Lemonfits better
Limefits better
Grapethe original
Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, tomato, ketchup, butter, pepper, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.