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Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, onions, butter, stock, and seasonings, strained and served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the tomatoes and all the other ingredients into a saucepan.

  2. Stir continuously until the tomatoes are thoroughly melted and the sauce is thick.

  3. Strain the sauce through a tammy (fine sieve) 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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 bright acidity, and break down into the sauce's thickness as water evaporates.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the finished sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Large onions
Contribute savoury aroma and some sweetness as their sugars develop during cooking.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the sauce is thick. As water evaporates and the tomatoes break down, the sauce thickens. Sugars from the onions and tomatoes can scorch quickly on the hot base of the pan, so constant stirring keeps the sauce from catching and burning.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, onion, parsley, clove, wine, 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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