Name: Creole Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; 1 green pepper, finely chopped; 1 small onion, finely chopped; 2 tomatoes, cut into pieces or 1 cup canned tomatoes; 10 olives, pitted and sliced; 2 tablespoons sherry wine; Brown Sauce (to taste)

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Creole Sauce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
1 green pepper, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, cut into pieces or 1 cup canned tomatoes
10 olives, pitted and sliced
2 tablespoons sherry wine
Brown Sauce (to taste)

Directions

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the chopped green pepper and onion; cook for 5 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes and olives; cook for 3 minutes.
Add the Brown Sauce and bring to a boil.
Stir in the sherry wine and do not strain the sauce.

Serve

Serve with steaks, chops, or fillet of beef.

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.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Tomato + winetop 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

What each ingredient does

Green pepper: Softened in butter to build a sweet, vegetal base for the sauce.
Onion: Softens as it cooks, adding savory depth and aroma to the base.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and bright acidity that balance the rich brown sauce.
Olives: Contribute a salty, briny note that sharpens the overall flavor.
Sherry wine: Adds aromatic acidity and a layer of fruity complexity at the end.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, tomato, olive, sherry, wine, sauce):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Shallotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, tomato, olive, sherry, wine, sauce. 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.