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Sauce

Tomato Butter

A tomato sauce made with butter, salt, sugar, cayenne, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Break the tomatoes into pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the tomatoes, butter, salt, sugar, cayenne, and white pepper.

  3. Cook over medium heat until the mixture becomes a pulp.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Return to the pan and reheat, stirring for 1-2 minutes until it boils.

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

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the base pulp and the bright, acidic flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the tomato acidity and helps round out the flavour.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving removes skins and seeds so the sauce turns smooth. Skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse, grainy texture that a smooth butter sauce should not have.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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