Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Sauce for Keeping

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, shallot, salt, capsicum, cayenne pepper, gherkins, onions, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce for Keeping

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Bake the tomatoes

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Place the tomatoes in a jar with a cover.

  3. Bake until tender, preferably overnight.

  4. Check the tomatoes in the morning. If they are soft enough, skin and rub through a sieve.

  5. Measure the pulp.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the corresponding amount of vinegar and other ingredients.

  2. Chop the garlic, shallot, capsicum, onion, and gherkins very finely.

  3. Boil the mixture until everything is tender.

  4. Rub it through a sieve again.

  5. Add the lemon juice.

  6. Boil until the sauce thickens to a cream-like consistency, stirring continuously.

Bottle and seal

  1. Once cooled, bottle the sauce.

  2. Cork it well. Seal the corks.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,520 recipes

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

  3. Capsicum + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pulp, which becomes the body of the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the sauce.
Shallot
Adds mild onion-like flavour and aroma to the sauce.
Sea salt
Seasons the sauce and helps preserve it.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness, and helps preserve the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Boil until the sauce thickens. Reduction by boiling concentrates the pulp and evaporates water, so the sauce thickens. Stirring continuously prevents the tomato solids from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, garlic, shallot, capsicum, pepper, onion):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, garlic, shallot, capsicum, pepper, onion. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes