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Tomato Sauce

A tomato sauce made with tomatoes, stock, butter, flour, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, red pepper, onion, parsley, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a pot.

  2. Add the tomatoes, flour, onion, parsley, baking soda, stock, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and red pepper.

  3. Boil for about 1 hour.

Finish

  1. Strain the sauce 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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the body and bright acidic flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it simmers, giving it body.
Stock
Adds liquid and savory depth to the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil for about 1 hour. Long simmering reduces the sauce and thickens it while mellowing the raw tomato flavor. Stopping early leaves it thin and sharp, while overcooking can scorch the bottom of the pot and darken the flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, butter, sugar, flour, tomato, parsley. 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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