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Tomato Sauce

A sweet and spiced tomato sauce made with tomatoes, peppers, onions, sugar, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions and green peppers finely.

Cook the sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, green peppers, onions, sugar, salt, ground cloves, mustard, cinnamon, and vinegar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat.

  3. Simmer for half a day, stirring occasionally.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply its main body and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften into the sauce.
Green peppers
Contribute vegetal flavor and body as they cook down into the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer for half a day, stirring occasionally. A long, gentle simmer lets water evaporate and the sauce thicken and deepen in flavor. Occasional stirring keeps solids from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, clove, mustard, cinnamon, vinegar. 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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