Name: Cold Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 1 peck ripe tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped; 1 small cup coarse sea salt; 1 large cup sugar; 1 teaspoon mustard seed; 1 teaspoon celery seed; 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 pint good vinegar; 4 tablespoons grated horse radish

Why it works: Mustard and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cold Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel and finely chop the tomatoes.
In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, coarse sea salt, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, cayenne pepper, vinegar, and grated horseradish. Stir well to mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Bottle

Bottle the sauce for storage.

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.

Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes: Provide the bulk and fresh tomato flavour of the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, tangy character.
Sugar: Balances the acidity and sharpness with sweetness.
Grated horseradish: Contributes a sharp, pungent heat and aroma.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, mustard, celery, pepper, vinegar, horse, radish):

Horseradishfits better
Broccolifits better
Cucumberfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, mustard, celery, pepper, vinegar, horse, radish. 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.