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Tomato Sauce

A savory sauce made from tomatoes, celery, butter, bacon, onion, bay leaf, thyme, salt, cayenne, flour, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and thyme 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. In a stew-pan, combine tomatoes, celery, butter, bacon, onion, bay leaf, thyme, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Stew gently until the tomatoes are tender.

  3. Stir in flour and moisten with broth.

  4. Boil for 5-6 minutes, then strain through a sieve.

  5. Return the strained sauce to the stew-pan and simmer until thickened.

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. Celery + thymetop 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
Provide the main body and flavour of the sauce as they soften and break down.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives a smooth mouthfeel.
Bacon
Releases fat and savoury flavour into the pan as it cooks with the vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Broth
Adds liquid and savoury depth, loosening the flour into a sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and moistening with broth. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not stirred in well. Stirring while adding the broth keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly when simmered.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, butter, thyme, pepper, flour. 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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