Name: Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 15 ripe tomatoes; ½ pint good beef gravy or stock; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

15 ripe tomatoes
½ pint good beef gravy or stock
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions

Scald and skin the tomatoes.
Strain the tomatoes through a sieve to remove the seeds.
Put the strained tomatoes in a saucepan with the beef gravy or stock, pepper, and salt.
Let the mixture simmer for 1 hour.

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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes: Provide the main body, moisture and bright flavour of the sauce.
Beef gravy or stock: Adds savoury depth and liquid, so the tomatoes reduce into a richer sauce.