Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,076 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
To Make Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Place the tomatoes in a jar and bake until soft.
Pour off the clear liquid and place the pulp in a sieve. Use a wooden spoon to work the pulp through the sieve.
Make the sauce
In a pot, combine the pulp with garlic, shallots, cayenne, salt, ginger, and vinegar.
Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
Bottle and store
Once cooled, bottle the sauce in wide-mouthed bottles.
Cork the bottles tightly and cover with a wet bladder.
Store in a cool place.
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 + garlictop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together14,076 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together6,402 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together565 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomatoes
- Provide the pulp that forms the body and bulk of the sauce.
- Garlic
- Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens during long boiling.
- Shallots
- Add savory aroma and body to the pulp as it cooks down.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that gives tang and helps preserve the sauce.
- Ginger
- Contributes warm, aromatic flavor to the cooked sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring while the mixture boils. Thick pulp settles and scorches on the bottom of the pot, which gives a burnt taste. Frequent stirring keeps the solids moving and heat even.
Flavor stand-ins for the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, garlic, shallot, pepper, vinegar):
- Tarragonbetter flavor fit
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, shallot, pepper, vinegar. 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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