Why it works: Tomato and shallot work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 583 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the tomatoes and chop the shallot.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Make the sauce
Add the bacon, shallot, and herbs, and cook for 5 minutes without browning.
Add the stock and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Return the sauce to the saucepan, add the meat glaze, and dissolve.
Season to taste and serve.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Tomato + shallottop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together583 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Shallot + meattop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + meattop 16% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Butter + shallottop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Tomato + meattop 17% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together1,438 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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 acidic flavour of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to carry flavour in the sauce.
- Bacon
- Adds savoury, smoky depth as it cooks in the butter.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base that the sauce simmers in and reduces.
- Meat glaze
- Adds concentrated savoury flavour and body to the finished sauce.
The step that matters
Cook the bacon, shallot, and herbs without browning. Gentle cooking softens the shallot and releases flavour without scorching. Browning would add bitter, burnt notes that could overpower the delicate tomato flavour.
Flavor stand-ins for the shallot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, meat):
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Onionbetter flavor fit
- Shallotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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