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Tomatoes with Mustard Sauce

Tomatoes served with a mustard, butter, and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomatoes with Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes to loosen the skins.

  2. Peel the tomatoes.

  3. Cut the tomatoes into thick slices.

  4. Place the tomatoes on ice.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter.

  2. Add the sugar and mustard. Mix well.

  3. Add the salt and pepper.

  4. Rub in the hard-boiled egg yolk using a sieve.

  5. Heat the vinegar.

  6. Add the vinegar to the mixture along with the beaten raw egg.

  7. Set the bowl over a hot water pan and cook slowly, stirring constantly until thickened.

  8. Set aside to cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the tomatoes.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 acidic, juicy flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies with the butter and thickens the sauce as it cooks gently.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness and richness of the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the butter and yolk.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce over hot water until thickened. Egg proteins set gradually at moderate heat. If the heat is too high or the mixture is not stirred constantly, the egg can scramble and the sauce turns grainy instead of smooth and thick.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mustard, egg, vinegar, sugar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mustard, egg, vinegar, sugar, 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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