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Tomato Sauce

A simple tomato sauce made with tomatoes, onion, parsley, bay leaf, celery, cloves, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. In a saucepan, combine tomatoes, parsley, bay leaf, celery, onion, and cloves.

  2. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and season

  1. Melt the butter in a separate pan without browning it.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the strained tomato juice and cook, stirring gently until it thickens.

  4. 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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the strained tomato juice into a smooth, lightly body-rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the butter. Stir the flour into the melted butter until smooth before adding liquid. This cooks the raw starch and blends it evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps. Keep the butter unbrowned so the sauce stays pale and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, celery, clove, 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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