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Tomato Sauce

A simple tomato sauce made with tomatoes, onion, water, butter, corn flour, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Chop the onion.

  2. Place the chopped onion in a pan with the tomatoes and water.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Rub the strained mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and season

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the corn flour.

  3. Add the strained tomatoes to the butter mixture.

  4. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 once cooked and sieved.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Corn flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated in the butter.
Onion
Adds savoury depth as it softens and flavours the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring in the corn flour. Corn flour must be cooked in the melted butter so its starch can swell and thicken evenly. Adding it to liquid without mixing well can cause lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, corn, 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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