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Sauce

Tomato Mustard

A preserved tomato-based mustard condiment made with tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, spices, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Mustard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, red pepper, and garlic finely.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve.

Bottle

  1. Let cool before bottling.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide moisture, acidity and body as they cook down.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and body to the sauce as they soften during boiling.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and sharpens its flavour.
Mustard
Supplies the pungent mustard flavour that defines the condiment.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve. Straining removes the solid pieces so the sauce has a smooth, pourable texture. Pressing too hard or skipping the strain leaves a coarse, uneven result.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, clove, garlic, vinegar, ginger, allspice):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, clove, garlic, vinegar, ginger, allspice. 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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