Name: Tomata or Love-apple Sauce
Ingredients: 10 to 15 ripe red tomatoes; 1 capsicum; 2 to 3 tablespoons of good gravy; ¼ teaspoon white pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 ounce butter; additional gravy if needed

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

Remove the stalks from the tomatoes, open the fruit, and remove the seeds.
Press the tomatoes by hand to extract excess water.

Cook and strain

Place the tomatoes and capsicum in a saucepan with the gravy.
Simmer gently over low heat for about 1 hour until tender and pulpy.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve back into the saucepan.

Finish and serve

Add white pepper, salt, butter, and more gravy if the sauce is too thick.
Simmer for a few more minutes before serving.

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.

Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Capsicum + white peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,595 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Capsicum + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,954 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe red tomatoes: Provide the main body, pulp and flavour of the sauce once cooked down.
Capsicum: Adds sweetness and vegetable flavour that blends into the cooked sauce.
Good gravy: Supplies liquid and savoury depth so the tomatoes can simmer to a pulp.
Butter: Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender and pulpy. Simmering gently over low heat lets the tomatoes break down and release pectin and water slowly. Boiling hard can scorch the bottom of the pan and leave the sauce uneven, so keep the heat low and stir occasionally.

Swap the white pepper

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

Corianderfits better
Cuminfits better
Basilfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, capsicum, butter. 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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Tomata or Love-apple Sauce