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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made by boiling tomatoes, onions, allspice, and water, then thickening with cornstarch and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the tomatoes, water, allspice, and onion in a porcelain-lined saucepan for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Boil the liquid again.

Thicken and serve

  1. Rub the cornstarch into the butter, then add salt and pepper.

  2. Stir the butter mixture into the strained juice in the saucepan.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Allspice + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes (in the method)
Form the base liquid that becomes the sauce's body and main flavour.
Cornstarch
Thickens the strained liquid as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and carries the cornstarch into the sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the liquid.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour as the liquid simmers.

The step that matters

Rub the cornstarch into the butter. Coating the starch grains in fat keeps them separated, so they disperse evenly instead of clumping when stirred into the hot liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, walnut, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, walnut, butter. 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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