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Tomato Puree

A tomato puree made by sautéing ham, onion, celery, shallot, and butter, simmering tomatoes, sieving, and adding to stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Puree

Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine ham, onion, celery, shallot, and butter in a sauté pan.

  2. Sauté for 5 minutes.

  3. Add sliced tomatoes and let them simmer until cooked.

Strain and finish

  1. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  2. Add the strained mixture to the stock.

  3. Bring to a boil for about 5 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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, acidity and fresh tomato flavour of the puree.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness while softening the aromatics without browning them.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the flavour base.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the pan.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked solids through a fine sieve removes skins and seeds and gives the puree a smooth texture. Leftover fibrous pieces would make the finished puree grainy.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, celery, butter, tomato, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, celery, butter, tomato, vinegar, 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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