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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from stewed tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, mace, parsley, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine stewed tomatoes, chopped onion, bay leaf, mace, and minced parsley in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer slowly for 15 minutes.

  3. Press the tomatoes through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a separate pan.

  2. Add the flour and mix until very smooth.

  3. Add the sieved tomatoes to the butter and flour mixture.

  4. Stir until it boils.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and liquid of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flour for thickening.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and tomato liquid.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Add the flour and mix until very smooth. Flour mixed into melted butter must be blended fully before liquid is added, otherwise it clumps and the sauce turns lumpy instead of evenly thickened.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, parsley, butter, flour, pepper. 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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