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Tomato-sauce

A simple tomato sauce made by simmering tomatoes with stock, then sieving and seasoning with cayenne pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Remove the stems from the tomatoes and squeeze out the seeds and watery pulp.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a pan and add a small quantity of stock.

  3. Boil until the tomatoes are soft.

Finish the sauce

  1. Squeeze the mixture through a fine sieve.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more stock.

  4. Serve hot in a small tureen or with meat.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and liquid that form the sauce.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth, and thins the sauce when it becomes too thick.

The step that matters

Squeeze the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the softened tomatoes through a fine sieve separates the pulp from the skins and remaining seeds, giving a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce grainy.

“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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