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Tomato Soy

A pickled tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,474 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the tomatoes and place them in a large pot.

  2. Add the vinegar, sugar, and ground cloves.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat.

  4. Simmer until the mixture has reduced by half.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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 bulk of the sauce and its fresh tomato flavour and body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tangy, pickled character.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and helps thicken the sauce as it reduces.
Ground cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer until reduced by half. Tomatoes are mostly water, so the sauce thickens only as moisture evaporates. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it too dense and sweet, so check the consistency as it reduces.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, clove):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, clove. 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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