Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Procure ripe tomatoes and remove the stems.
Cut the tomatoes into slices and place them in a pan with the onion, carrot, and stock.
Cook and strain
Stew until the mixture is quite soft.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
Season and serve
Season with Cayenne pepper, sugar, lemon juice, and salt.
Serve hot in a small tureen or alongside meat.
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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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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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).
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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 main body, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
- Onion
- Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens during stewing.
- Carrot
- Adds natural sweetness and body to the stewed mixture.
- Stock
- Supplies liquid so the vegetables can soften evenly while stewing.
The step that matters
Stew until the mixture is quite soft. The vegetables must break down fully before straining, because under-cooked pieces will not pass smoothly through a sieve and leave the sauce grainy.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, carrot, sugar, lemon, pepper):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Okrabetter flavor fit
- Parsnipbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, carrot, sugar, lemon, 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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