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Tomato Sauce

A seasoned tomato stock made by simmering tomatoes, spices, and onion, then thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 7,874 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cook the first seven ingredients for 15 minutes.

  2. Press the cooked mixture through a sieve to obtain 2 cups of seasoned tomato stock.

Make the sauce

  1. Brown the onion in butter, then remove the onion.

  2. Add flour and seasonings to the butter; mix well.

  3. Gradually add the stock, stirring and cooking until thick.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body and flavour base for the sauce stock.
Butter
Carries the browned onion flavour and forms the fat base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by forming a roux with the butter as the stock is added.

The step that matters

Gradually add the stock to the butter and flour. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour mixture smooth, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens evenly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, allspice, pepper, parsley, butter, flour. 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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