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Sauce

Tomato Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, stock, butter, flour, celery, salt, and pepper, 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 celery 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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Place the tomatoes in a saucepan and pour over the stock.

  2. Add the salt and pepper, then cut off the celery stalk and add it.

  3. Cook slowly over the fire for 30 minutes.

  4. Set a wire sieve over a basin and rub the tomatoes and stock through it.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour, stirring well.

  2. Pour the mixture over the strained tomatoes and stock, stirring over the fire until boiling.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, flavour and acidity of the sauce once cooked and strained.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid to cook and dissolve the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Stirring the roux into the boiling sauce. Flour mixed with hot butter forms a roux; adding it to hot liquid while stirring constantly prevents lumps and lets starch swell evenly for a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, celery. 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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