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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, thyme, celery, onion, bay leaf, salt, cayenne pepper, baking soda, and thin white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,193 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine tomatoes, thyme, celery, onion, bay leaf, salt, and cayenne pepper in a pot.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Stir in baking soda and then add the thin white sauce.

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. Thyme + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. 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

Tomatoes
Form the sauce's main body, flavor, and liquid base as they cook down.
Thin white sauce
Adds body and creaminess to the strained tomato mixture.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, softening their sharp taste.

The step that matters

Stir in baking soda. Baking soda reacts with acid and releases carbon dioxide, so adding too much can make the sauce taste soapy or bitter. Add it to the strained mixture and stir well before adding the white sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, thyme, celery, sauce, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, thyme, celery, sauce, 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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