Name: Creole Sauce
Ingredients: 1 can of tomatoes; 6 onions, minced; 3 green peppers, chopped; 6 mushrooms, sliced; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 pint Espagnole sauce; 6 olives, pitted and sliced

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Creole Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.
Sauté the onions, green peppers, and mushrooms until tender.
Add the tomatoes and Espagnole sauce to the skillet.
Stir in the sliced olives and cook for a few more minutes.

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 + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Mushroom + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,571 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,719 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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

Onions: Soften and build a sweet, savory base for the sauce.
Green peppers: Add vegetable body and a fresh, slightly bitter flavor to the sauce.
Mushrooms: Add savory depth and moisture as they release juices while cooking.
Tomatoes: Provide acidity, liquid, and the base flavor of the sauce.
Espagnole sauce: Supplies a rich, thickened brown sauce body and savory flavor.
Butter: Adds fat and richness and helps sauté the vegetables without sticking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, mushroom, butter, sauce, olive):

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Potatofits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, mushroom, butter, sauce, olive. 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.