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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made by stewing sliced tomatoes and shallots in butter, then puréed and seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Slice the tomatoes and shallots thinly and add them to the pan.

  3. Stew until soft, then press through a wire sieve.

  4. Return the puree to the pan, add more butter, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

  5. Heat thoroughly before serving.

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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, providing bulk, flavour and body once pureed.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic flavour as they soften in the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Stew until soft, then press through a wire sieve. Cooking the tomatoes and shallots gently until fully soft breaks down their cell walls, so the puree passes smoothly through the sieve. Under-cooked pieces stay fibrous and leave the sauce grainy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, pepper, vinegar. 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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