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Sauce

Tomato Cream

A sweet and tangy tomato sauce made with onions, apples, tomatoes, mustard, vinegar, red pepper, brown sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions, apples, and tomatoes finely.

  2. Boil the mixture until soft.

  3. Strain through a sieve and let cool.

Cook and finish

  1. Add mustard, vinegar, red pepper, brown sugar, and salt.

  2. Boil until thick.

  3. Bottle the mixture.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Onions
Provide the aromatic base and body once softened by boiling.
Apples
Add natural pectin and sweetness, helping the mixture thicken and hold together.
Tomatoes
Contribute moisture, body and a mild acidity to the mixture.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the mixture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel notes that deepen as the mixture reduces.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Sugar and pectin concentrate as water evaporates, so the mixture thickens during boiling. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while over-reducing can scorch the sugars and make it bitter and hard to pour.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tomato, mustard, vinegar, pepper, sugar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, mustard, vinegar, pepper, sugar. 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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