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Sauce

Tomato Mustard

A preserved tomato sauce flavored with onions, peppers, cloves, black pepper, ginger, salt, brown sugar, mustard, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and red peppers.

Make the sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables, whole cloves, black pepper, ginger, and salt.

  2. Boil for 2 hours, then strain the mixture.

  3. Add the brown sugar and mustard mixed with cider vinegar.

  4. Boil for an additional 2 hours and then bottle.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide moisture and acidity as they cook down.
Onions
Add savory body and sweetness as they soften during the long boil.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Contributes pungent flavor and sharpness that carries through the long simmer.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours, then strain. Long boiling breaks down the tomatoes and softens the onions so the sauce thickens and concentrates. Straining removes the solids and whole spices before the sugar and vinegar are added, giving a smooth texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, ginger, sugar, mustard, cider. 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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