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Tomato Sauce

A seasoned tomato stock 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: Berry and parsley share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 16 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cook the first seven ingredients for 15 minutes.

  2. Press 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. Berry + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,711 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 3% 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 tomato flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the browned flavour and forms the fat base for the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by combining with the butter and absorbing the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the stock to the roux. Flour and butter form a roux that must be combined before liquid goes in. Adding stock gradually while stirring keeps the mixture smooth, because starch clumps if it meets hot liquid all at once. Cooking until thick lets the starch swell fully.

Flavor stand-ins for the berry

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

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Mangobetter flavor fit
  4. Berrythe original

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