Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Sauce

A sweet and spicy tomato sauce made with tomatoes, peppers, onions, sugar, salt, cloves, mustard, cinnamon, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions and green peppers finely.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine all ingredients: tomatoes, green peppers, onions, sugar, salt, ground cloves, mustard, cinnamon, and vinegar.

  2. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat.

  3. Simmer for half a day, stirring occasionally.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk, moisture and acidity that form the body of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, which brightens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they soften during the long simmer.
Green peppers
Add a grassy, vegetal flavour and some body as they cook down.

The step that matters

Simmer for half a day, stirring occasionally. A long, gentle simmer lets water evaporate and the sauce thicken and deepen in flavour. Occasional stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot, since sugar-rich sauces burn easily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sugar, clove, mustard, cinnamon, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, clove, mustard, cinnamon, vinegar. 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.

More tomato sauce recipes

Green 40Beef in 13Eggs in 13French 8Sweetbreads in 7Spiced 6 See all 512 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes