Name: Tomata or Lote-apple Sauce
Ingredients: 10 to 15 ripe red tomatoes; 1 capsicum; 2 to 3 tablespoons of good gravy; ¼ teaspoon white pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 ounce butter; additional gravy if needed

Why it works: Tomato and capsicum match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,520 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomata or Lote-apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

Remove the stalks from the tomatoes, cut them open and remove the seeds.
Press the tomatoes by hand to extract the water.

Make the sauce

Place the tomatoes and capsicum in a saucepan with the gravy.
Simmer gently over low heat for about an hour until the tomatoes are tender and pulpy.
Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the saucepan.
Add white pepper, salt and butter.
Add more gravy if the sauce is too thick.
Simmer together for a few more minutes.

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.

Tomato + capsicumtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Capsicum + white peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,595 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Capsicum + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,954 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 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

Ripe red tomatoes: Provide the main body and flavour of the sauce as they break down into pulp.
Capsicum: Adds sweetness and vegetable flavour to the sauce as it cooks down.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Gravy: Supplies liquid and savoury depth, and thins the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently over low heat. Slow, gentle heat lets the tomatoes soften and release pectin into a pulp without scorching on the base of the pan. High heat can burn the sugars and make the sauce bitter.

Swap the white pepper

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

Corianderfits better
Cuminfits better
Basilfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, capsicum, butter. 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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Tomata or Lote-apple Sauce