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Tomato Soy

A spiced tomato sauce made by layering tomatoes, onions, and spices, then boiling and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Soy

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle the bottom of a large tub with salt.

  2. Layer the sliced tomatoes in the tub.

  3. Sprinkle half a pint of salt and sliced onions over each 2-inch layer.

  4. Let the tomatoes sit for 3 days.

Cook and strain

  1. Transfer the mixture to a large iron pot.

  2. Boil, stirring constantly, from morning until night.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Press to extract all the liquid.

  5. Add cloves, allspice, black pepper, and cayenne to the liquid.

  6. Boil the mixture slowly all day.

Bottle and store

  1. Transfer to a suitable vessel.

  2. Cool.

  3. Bottle.

  4. Cork it well.

  5. Store in a cool place during warm weather.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body, liquid and flavour of the sauce.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the tomatoes and onions, and helps preserve the sauce.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour during the long boil.
Cayenne
Adds heat and sharpness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture slowly all day. Long, gentle boiling reduces the liquid and concentrates flavour. Too little heat or time leaves the sauce thin and watery, while scorching at the bottom of the pot can cause a burnt taste, so the mixture needs steady attention.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, allspice, 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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