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
Prepare the tomatoes
Wash and clean the tomatoes.
Place the tomatoes in a pot with enough water to cover.
Add half an onion, parsley, and a little salt.
Cook the tomatoes until soft.
Strain the tomatoes through a sieve.
Make the thickening and finish
Melt ½ cup of lard in a pan.
Add 2 tablespoons of flour to the lard to make a light thickening.
Stir in a large spoonful of meat soup quickly.
Pour this mixture onto the strained tomatoes.
If desired, add 2 or 3 lumps of sugar to taste.
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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Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together5,398 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomatoes
- Form the body of the sauce, providing the main flavour and liquid once cooked and strained.
- Lard
- Carries fat for the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce when cooked briefly in fat, giving it body.
The step that matters
Stirring in the meat soup. Flour and fat form a roux that thickens liquid, but adding the liquid too slowly or without stirring lets lumps form. Stirring quickly while adding the soup keeps the mixture smooth before it hits the tomatoes.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, flour, parsley, sugar):
- Okrabetter flavor fit
- Eggplantbetter flavor fit
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, flour, parsley, 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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