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Beef with Tomatoes

A dish of broiled beef topped with a tomato sauce made from tomatoes, cloves, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beef with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Broil the beef until cooked to your liking.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, boil the tomatoes with the cloves, butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt until tender.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander to remove solids.

Serve

  1. Pour the tomato sauce over the beef and serve hot or cold.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh plate beef
Provides the main protein, which is browned and cooked under the broiler.
Tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, adding acidity, body and moisture when simmered until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the tomato sauce a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the tomatoes until tender. Tomatoes must cook long enough to soften fully, so the sauce breaks down and can be strained smooth; undercooked tomatoes leave a firm, tart texture that does not strain well.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, butter, 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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