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Tomata, or Love-apple Sauce

A sauce made from tomatoes, capsicum, beef gravy, white pepper, and coarse sea salt, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,520 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomata, or Love-apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Remove the stalks from the tomatoes and cut them in half.

  2. Squeeze the tomatoes to remove all the water and seeds.

Cook and strain

  1. Place the tomatoes in a saucepan with the capsicum and beef gravy.

  2. Cook on low heat for 1 hour until melted.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan.

Season

  1. Add a little white pepper and coarse sea salt, and let it simmer for a few 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.

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 + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,520 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Capsicum + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,370 recipes

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

  4. Capsicum + white peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,595 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + white peppertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ripe red tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce, breaking down into a smooth, pulpy base as they cook.
Capsicum
Adds sweet, vegetal flavour and body to the sauce as it cooks down.
Beef gravy
Adds savoury depth and richness to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat for 1 hour. Low, slow heat lets the tomatoes break down gently and concentrate their flavour without scorching on the bottom of the pan. Too much heat can burn the sugars and leave a bitter taste.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, capsicum, beef. 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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