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 Soy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tomatoes
Sprinkle the bottom of a large tub with coarse sea salt.
Layer the sliced tomatoes in the tub, sprinkling ½ pint of salt and 3 sliced onions over each 2-inch layer.
Let the mixture sit for 3 days.
Cook and strain
Transfer the tomatoes to a large iron pot and boil, stirring constantly, from morning until night.
The next morning, pass the mixture through a sieve, pressing to extract all the liquid.
Add cloves, allspice, black pepper, and Cayenne to the liquid.
Boil the mixture slowly all day.
Cool and bottle
In the evening, transfer to a suitable vessel to cool.
The next day, bottle and cork it well, storing in a cool place.
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.
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,633 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
- Ripe tomatoes
- Provide the main body and liquid that becomes the sauce once cooked and strained.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and helps preserve the mixture during the long rest.
- Onions
- Add savory flavor and body to the tomato liquid as it cooks down.
- Cloves
- Add warm, aromatic spice flavor to the finished sauce.
- Allspice
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the finished sauce.
- Cayenne pepper
- Adds sharp heat to the finished sauce.
The step that matters
Boiling the strained liquid slowly all day. Long, gentle boiling concentrates the liquid and drives off water, thickening the sauce and deepening its flavor. Too little time leaves it thin and under-seasoned, while boiling too hard can scorch the solids and sugars sticking to the pot.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, clove, allspice, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Eggplantfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, allspice, pepper. 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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