Name: Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 1 can of tomatoes; 1 pint of brown stock; 2 onions, chopped; 1 carrot, chopped; some celery, chopped; 12 cloves; 1 tablespoon whole allspice

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, brown stock, onions, carrot, celery, cloves, and allspice.
Bring to a boil and let simmer for 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

Thicken the sauce as desired and strain it.
Season to taste before serving.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,021 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
Brown stock: Adds savoury depth and liquid for the sauce to simmer in.
Onions: Break down during simmering to add sweetness and body.
Carrot: Adds natural sweetness and body as it softens during simmering.
Allspice: Adds warm aromatic flavour to the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, carrot, celery, clove, allspice):

Parsnipfits better
Capsicumfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, carrot, celery, clove, allspice. 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.