Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 20,633 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the onion for a few minutes.
Add the herbs, peppercorns, tomatoes, and stock.
Stir until boiling, then simmer gently for about 20 minutes.
Rub the mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.
Thicken and season
Mix the cornflour with a little cold water to form a paste and add it to the sauce.
Season with salt and a pinch of castor sugar, then boil for 8 minutes.
If the sauce is too thick, add a little stock.
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 + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together6,918 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together4,667 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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, bright acidity and flavour of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the sauce.
- Cornflour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated with liquid.
- Onion
- Softens and adds savoury sweetness when fried gently in butter.
The step that matters
Adding the cornflour paste. Cornflour must be mixed smoothly with cold water first, then stirred into the simmering sauce and boiled. Its starch swells and thickens only when hot, and adding it dry or unmixed causes lumps and a floury taste.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, sugar):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, sugar. 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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