Skip to main content
Drink

Tomato Sauce

A homemade tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, ginger, cayenne, anchovy sauce, salt, garlic, shallots, lemon juice, chili vinegar, and soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,057 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Place the tomatoes in large pie dishes and leave them in the oven overnight.

  2. Skim the tomatoes.

  3. Strain them through a large sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the tomato liquid with the remaining ingredients in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until the onion is tender.

  3. Strain through a sieve again.

  4. Boil until the sauce thickens to the consistency of cream.

Bottle and seal

  1. Pour the sauce into bottles.

  2. Let it cool completely.

  3. Seal with corks.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Ginger + shallottop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together565 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and flavour of the sauce once their liquid is strained out.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the sauce.
Shallots or onion
Contributes sweetness and savoury base flavour as it softens during boiling.
Anchovy sauce
Adds deep savoury, salty umami flavour to the sauce.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and salt-like umami flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until the sauce thickens to the consistency of cream. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the tomato solids, so the sauce thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while over-boiling can scorch the sugars and make it bitter.

Flavor stand-ins for the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, pepper, anchovy, sauce, garlic, shallot):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, pepper, anchovy, sauce, garlic, shallot. 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.

More tomato sauce recipes

Green 40Beef in 13Eggs in 13French 8Sweetbreads in 7Spiced 6 See all 512 →

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesLemon WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesGinger PopGinger Pop22 recipes