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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, butter, flour, beef stock, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pass the tomatoes through a strainer.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir well.

  2. Gradually add beef soup stock until the sauce reaches the desired consistency.

  3. Simmer the sauce for 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then strain before using.

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

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

  2. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavor and acidity of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and forms the base for the flour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated in the fat and liquid.
Beef soup stock
Supplies the liquid and savory beef flavor, and sets the final consistency.

The step that matters

Add the stock gradually. Flour mixed into melted butter forms a paste that can clump when liquid is poured in quickly. Adding the stock slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, giving a smooth sauce that thickens consistently.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, beef, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, beef, 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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