Why it works: Tomato and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,913 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Pare and slice the tomatoes.
Stew the tomatoes until perfectly smooth.
Season with salt and pepper.
Make the sauce
Add the butter and stir until melted.
Before removing from heat, stir in the cream mixed with flour. Do not let it boil after adding the flour.
Serve
Serve the tomatoes over pieces of toast.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,913 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Tomato + buttertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together6,890 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Pepper + buttertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together85,512 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomatoes
- Form the main body of the dish and, once stewed, its smooth, juicy base.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a silky, thick texture to the tomatoes.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream so the sauce coats the tomatoes instead of staying thin.
- Butter
- Adds fat and a rounded, savoury richness to the sauce.
The step that matters
Do not let it boil after adding the flour. Once flour is stirred into cream, prolonged or vigorous boiling can cause the sauce to break or thin out, and the starch thickens best when heated gently just until smooth.
“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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