Name: Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 12 fine tomatoes; a little water or gravy; 20 sauces (variety of sauces to taste); a little vinegar; lemon juice to taste; cayenne pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 yolk of an egg (optional, well beaten)

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

Skin the tomatoes and place them in a saucepan with a little water or gravy.
Cook over medium heat, mashing the tomatoes as they soften.
Add the sauces, vinegar, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt.
If desired, stir in the beaten egg yolk.
Strain the sauce if you prefer a smoother texture, or leave it as is.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together4,592 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, bright flavor and pulp that breaks down into the sauce.
Egg yolk: Optional; adds richness and thickens the sauce slightly when stirred in.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the tomatoes.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sauce, vinegar, pepper, egg):

Avocadoabout as good a flavor fit
Cherryabout as good a flavor fit
Limeabout as good a flavor fit
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, vinegar, pepper, egg. 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.