Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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
Prepare the pulp
Bake the ripe tomatoes in a pan until very tender.
Rub the baked tomatoes through a sieve to obtain the pulp.
Make the sauce
For every pound of pulp, add 1 quart of vinegar, ½ ounce of white pepper, ½ ounce of salt, 1 ounce of garlic, 1 ounce of sliced shallots, and the juice of 3 lemons.
Boil the mixture until tender, then strain it through a sieve again.
Boil the strained mixture until it thickens to the consistency of cream.
Add Cayenne pepper to taste.
Bottle
Bottle the sauce in ½ pint bottles.
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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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together14,076 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ripe tomatoes
- Form the pulp that becomes the body of the sauce.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
- Garlic
- Provides a pungent aroma and savoury depth.
- Shallots
- Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma.
- Lemon juice
- Adds bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.
The step that matters
Boiling until it thickens to the consistency of cream. Tomato pulp thickens as water evaporates and its pectin and solids concentrate. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce, while over-reducing can scorch the bottom of the pan and make it too thick.
Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, vinegar, garlic, shallot, lemon, pepper):
- Tarragonbetter flavor fit
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, garlic, shallot, lemon, pepper. 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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