Why it works: Tomato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,918 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Boil the can of tomatoes with salt for 1 hour.
Press the tomatoes through a colander into a saucepan.
Add butter and thicken with cornstarch dissolved in a little cold water.
Stir while it thickens until it drops from the spoon like thick cream.
Serve
Serve with mutton chops or veal cutlets.
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.
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Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,918 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 and tomato flavour of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a creamy body.
The step that matters
Stirring while the sauce thickens. Cornstarch can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if it is not stirred while it heats. Stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly.
“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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