Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tomato base
Remove the stalks from the fresh tomatoes and press them tightly in a stewpan.
Cover and heat on the stove, then strain off the liquid.
Add the raw ham, shallots, and stock to the tomatoes and let it stew for 1 hour.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Finish the sauce
In another stewpan, heat a little brown sauce and add the strained tomatoes.
Boil together and season with cayenne, salt, sugar, and lemon juice.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,523 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together4,592 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together5,898 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh tomatoes
- Provide the main body and flavour of the sauce once cooked down and sieved.
- Brown sauce
- Adds depth and colour to the tomato base when heated together.
- Shallots
- Add a mild aromatic sweetness as they stew with the tomatoes.
- Raw ham
- Adds savoury, salty depth to the stewed tomato mixture.
The step that matters
Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the stewed solids through a fine sieve removes skins and seeds and gives the sauce a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce coarse and grainy.
Flavor stand-ins for the shallot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, ham, sauce, pepper, sugar, lemon):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Mustardbetter flavor fit
- Okrabetter flavor fit
- Shallotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ham, sauce, pepper, sugar, lemon. 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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