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Sauce

Tomato Cream

A sweet and tangy tomato-based sauce made with onions, apples, mustard, vinegar, and brown sugar.

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. Peel and finely chop the onions, apples, and tomatoes.

  2. Boil the mixture until soft.

  3. Strain through a sieve and let it cool.

Finish and bottle

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

  2. Boil until thick and then bottle.

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
Break down into soft bulk that gives the sauce body as they cook.
Apples
Soften into pectin-rich pulp that thickens the sauce and adds mild sweetness.
Tomatoes
Supply the base liquid and acidity that give the sauce its flavour and colour.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the sauce thicken as it reduces.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. The sauce thickens only as water evaporates during the long boil. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while over-reducing can make it stick and scorch on the bottom of the pot.

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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