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Ripe Tomato Soy

A fermented tomato sauce made with tomatoes, salt, celery, onions, vinegar, spices, sugar, and mustard seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ripe Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Combine the tomatoes and salt in a large bowl and let stand for 24 hours.

  2. Drain off the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the chopped celery, onions, vinegar, and all the spices to the tomatoes.

  2. Stew the mixture slowly for 2 hours.

  3. When nearly done, stir in the sugar and white mustard seed.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its main flavour and body.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during stewing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and vinegar with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during long cooking.

The step that matters

Stew the mixture slowly for 2 hours. Slow simmering lets the liquid reduce and the flavours meld, while a fast boil can scorch the sugar and thicken the sauce unevenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, vinegar, mustard, ginger, clove, allspice):

  1. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, vinegar, mustard, ginger, clove, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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