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Tomato Sauce

A tomato sauce made by stewing tomatoes with herbs, then thickened with a butter‑flour roux.

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

  1. Stew the tomatoes with parsley, cloves, onion, salt, and pepper for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve and add beef stock if using.

  3. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  4. Add flour and cook thoroughly.

  5. Gradually add the tomato pulp.

  6. Stir constantly and cook for a few moments.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and combined with the tomato pulp.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and forms the base for the flour roux.

The step that matters

Cook the flour in the butter. Cooking flour in melted butter until it is fully cooked removes its raw starchy taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding the tomato pulp gradually and stirring constantly prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, clove, onion, pepper, beef, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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