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Tomato Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the tomatoes

  1. Cook tomatoes, onion, and cloves together for a few minutes.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend butter and flour together.

  2. Stir the butter-flour mixture into the tomato mixture and cook.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then strain through a sieve.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body of the sauce and supply its acidity and fresh flavor.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and a flavor base as it softens in the tomatoes.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice notes to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stir the butter-flour mixture into the tomato mixture and cook. Flour thickens only when its starch is evenly dispersed and heated. Adding it unevenly can form lumps, and not cooking it long enough leaves a raw, floury taste. Keep stirring while it cooks.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, butter, 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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