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Tomato Sauce for Chops, Fillet or Steak

A tomato-based sauce simmered with butter, flour, onion, bay leaf, parsley, and mace, served over chops, fillet, or steak.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce for Chops, Fillet or Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine tomatoes, water, onion, bay leaf, parsley, and mace in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Press the tomato mixture through a sieve to remove solids.

Make the roux and finish

  1. Melt butter in a separate pan and add flour to the melted butter, mixing until smooth.

  2. Add the butter and flour mixture to the strained tomatoes.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, acidity and flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the melted butter and tomato liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture to the strained tomatoes. Flour thickens only when its starch is cooked in liquid. Adding the roux to the tomatoes and then simmering lets the starch swell fully and removes any raw flour taste, while stirring prevents lumps.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, onion, parsley, 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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