Name: Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 5 gallons tomatoes; 1 lb sugar; 1 carrot, grated; 2 onions; 10 oz vinegar; 5 oz mixed spices (in a bag); salt to taste; 2 oz flour

Why it works: Tomato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the tomatoes with the grated carrot, whole onions, bag of spices, salt, sugar, and vinegar for 2 hours.
Add the flour and boil for another hour.
Strain through a china cap strainer.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its main body and flavour when cooked down.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve its tangy flavour.
Flour: Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it a smoother body.
Onions: Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they simmer in the sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, carrot, onion, vinegar, flour):

Turnipfits better
Beetrootfits better
Parsnipfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, carrot, onion, vinegar, 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.