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Sauce

Tomato Sauce

A savory sauce made with stock, tomatoes, veal and ham shanks, herbs, vegetables, bay leaves, garlic, roux, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine stock and tomatoes in a pot.

  2. Add veal shank, ham shank, herbs, sliced vegetables, and bay leaves.

  3. Boil until vegetables are tender.

  4. Thicken the sauce with roux.

  5. Strain the sauce and add a little sugar to taste.

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 + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + vealtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 fresh flavour of the sauce.
Roux
Thickens the sauce, giving it body and a smoother texture.
Veal shank
Adds gelatin and savoury meaty depth as it simmers in the sauce.
Ham shank
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes for a rounder taste.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with roux. Roux must be cooked into the liquid gradually and simmered long enough, or the sauce can stay floury or lumpy. Adding it too fast or without enough simmering causes clumps and a raw starchy taste.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, veal, ham, garlic, sugar):

  1. Basilfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, veal, ham, garlic, sugar. 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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