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Tomato Puree

A smooth tomato sauce made by simmering tomatoes with stock, herbs, and onions, then thickened with flour and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Puree

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine tomatoes, brown stock, bay leaf, parsley, celery, and sugar in a saucepan and simmer thoroughly.

  2. Melt butter in a sauté pan, add onions, and cook until soft but not browned.

Thicken and finish

  1. Stir in flour and mix well, then add this mixture to the tomatoes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, pass the mixture through a fine sieve, and heat again.

  3. 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.

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.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and tomato flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while softening the onions without browning them.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the puree becomes smooth and body-rich.
Brown stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid to the tomato base.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens gently.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions until soft but not browned. Browning changes the flavour toward bitter and caramelised notes that would alter the clean tomato taste. Gentle cooking in butter softens the onions so they blend smoothly and keep the puree's colour and flavour light.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, sugar, parsley, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, sugar, parsley, butter, pepper, flour. 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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