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Tomato Sauce Francaise

A tomato sauce made with tomatoes, onions, parsley, thyme, garlic clove, and butter, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the quartered tomatoes, sliced onions, parsley, thyme, clove, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,171 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
Provide the main body, moisture and bright acidity of the sauce as they break down.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during the long cook.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, silkier mouthfeel and carries aroma.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Tomatoes and onions with butter can scorch or stick to the base of the pan. Occasional stirring spreads heat evenly, while gentle simmering softens the vegetables and concentrates flavor over the full 45 minutes.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, parsley, thyme, butter):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, parsley, thyme, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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