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Tomato Paste

A thick tomato paste made with tomatoes, onion, butter, cheese, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onion into small pieces.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with the butter and simmer gently until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Add the cheese.

Make the paste

  1. Mix the flour with a little water to form a firm paste and stir it into the mixture.

  2. Cook until thick after boiling.

Season and rest

  1. Transfer to a basin and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and mixed herbs.

  2. Allow to sit overnight before using.

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).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 flavour of the paste as they break down during simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens during cooking.
Flour
Mixed with water to form a firm paste that thickens the mixture when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mixture as it simmers with the vegetables.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and savoury flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook until thick after boiling. Flour thickens only when it boils, so the mixture must reach a full boil and be cooked long enough, or it stays thin and can taste floury.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, flour, butter, cheese, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, flour, butter, cheese, pepper. 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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