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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made by simmering tomatoes with shallots, garlic, mace, and stock, then sieving and boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze out the juice and seeds.

  2. Place the fleshy parts in a stew pan with shallots, clove, mace, and gravy or stock. Add salt and cayenne to taste.

Cook and strain

  1. Simmer until the tomatoes are tender enough to pulp.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Serve.

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. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Tomato + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together583 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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 and flavour of the sauce, breaking down into pulp when simmered.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the sauce.
Gravy or stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid so the tomatoes can soften and pulp.

The step that matters

Simmer until the tomatoes are tender enough to pulp. If the tomatoes are undercooked, they will not break down properly and the sauce will stay lumpy and watery when rubbed through a sieve. Cooking until soft lets the pectin and cell walls break down so the pulp passes smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, shallot, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, shallot, clove. 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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