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Tomato Sauce

A simple sauce made from tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, parsley, mace, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

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

Make the tomato base

  1. Place the tomatoes in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the onion, bay leaf, parsley, and mace, and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Press the mixture through a colander, then strain through a sieve to remove the seeds.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and mix until well combined.

  3. Stir in the strained tomatoes.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Tomato + peppertop 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
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the melted butter. Stirring the flour until fully combined into the butter forms a smooth roux; if it is left lumpy or not cooked briefly, the sauce can turn out gritty or pasty when the tomatoes are added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, parsley, 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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