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Sauce

Tomato Soy

A tomato sauce with onions, spices, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes.

  2. Slice and add the onions, then sprinkle with sugar and let stand for 36 hours.

Simmer

  1. Add red pepper, allspice, cloves, ginger, and mustard.

  2. Let it simmer quietly for 2 hours.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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, as they cook down, add body and acidity.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma that builds as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, draws liquid out of the vegetables during standing, and helps the sauce thicken.
Red pepper
Adds heat that builds gradually during cooking.
Ginger
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice note.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy flavor that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer quietly for 2 hours. A gentle simmer lets water evaporate slowly so the sauce thickens evenly. A hard boil can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot and make the sauce bitter.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, allspice, clove, ginger, mustard, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, allspice, clove, ginger, mustard, sugar. 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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