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Sauce

Tomato Butter

A tomato sauce made with butter, shallots, and optional carmine, simmered until pulpy and strained.

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 Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the tomatoes and place them in a pan with the butter, carmine, shallot, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cover with a lid and cook gently on the side of the stove until they become a pulp.

  3. Rub the pulp through a fine sieve, re-warm, and serve.

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. Butter + shallottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 flavor of the sauce once cooked down to a pulp.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Shallot
Adds a mild, aromatic sharpness that complements the tomato.

The step that matters

Rub the pulp through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked tomato through a fine sieve removes skins and seeds, which is what gives the sauce its smooth texture.

Swap the shallot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, 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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