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Sauce

Tomato Butter

A tomato sauce made with butter, shallot, and seasonings, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the shallot and place it in a saucepan with the butter.

  2. Fry gently for 10 minutes without browning.

  3. Add the sliced tomatoes, carmine, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook slowly until tender.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. Return to the saucepan to re-warm and 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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, moisture and tangy flavour of the sauce as they cook down.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Shallot
Softens during gentle frying to add a mild, sweet aromatic base.
Castor sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes and rounds out the flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the shallot gently without browning. Browning gives bitter, caramelised notes that would clash with the fresh tomato flavour. Gentle heat softens the shallot and releases its sweetness while keeping the butter and sauce pale and delicate.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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