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Sauce

Obeen Tomato Sauce

A spiced sauce made from green tomatoes, onions, sugar, vinegar and mustard, boiled together until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,874 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Obeen Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the green tomatoes and place them in a large pot.

  2. Add the mustard, mustard seed, pepper, salt, allspice, cloves, chopped onions, sugar, vinegar, and celery seed.

  3. Boil the mixture for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,259 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the sauce and break down during boiling to form its body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness with sweetness.
Mustard seed
Adds pungency and a sharp, slightly bitter flavor that deepens during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Long simmering softens the tomatoes and lets their pectin thicken the sauce, while stirring prevents the sugar and solids from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  3. Cucumberbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

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