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Plain Tomato Sauce

A simple tomato sauce made by simmering tomatoes with herbs, seasoning, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes into quarters and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add the parsley, green onions, leek, bay leaf, cloves, and peppercorns.

Cook and strain

  1. Cover the saucepan and cook over medium heat until the tomatoes are thoroughly soft.

  2. Remove the herb bundle and strain the tomatoes through a fine sieve.

Reduce and finish

  1. Return the puree to a flat saucepan and reduce it over medium heat to the desired consistency.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in a piece of butter before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Leek + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavour of the sauce, softening into a puree when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the puree to the desired consistency. Tomato puree thickens gradually as water evaporates over medium heat. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while over-reducing can make it pasty or scorch on the base of the pan, so it needs regular stirring and checking.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, onion, leek, pepper, butter. 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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