Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,002 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry it in a pan.
Add the chopped onion, carrot, and turnip, and fry until softened.
Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a short time.
Stir in the flour and cook over the heat.
Add the stock or water, along with salt and pepper to taste.
Strain and serve
Rub the sauce through a fine sieve or strainer, ensuring the tomatoes pass through.
Heat the sauce and serve.
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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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together21,601 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 main body and flavour of the sauce once cooked and pressed through.
- Bacon
- Adds fat and savoury flavour to the pan that seasons the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and liquid.
- Onion
- Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the fat.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour. Flour must be cooked in the fat before the liquid is added, so it thickens smoothly and loses its raw starchy taste. Adding liquid too early can leave lumps.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper):
- Parsnipbetter flavor fit
- Okrabetter flavor fit
- Spinachbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, carrot, turnip, flour, pepper. 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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