Name: Creole Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons chopped onion; 4 tablespoons chopped green pepper; 2 tablespoons melted butter or compound; 2 tomatoes, chopped; 6 olives, chopped; 1 teaspoon salt; Pepper to taste; 1 cup tomato sauce

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Creole Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

In a skillet, cook the onion and green pepper in the melted butter for five minutes.
Add the chopped tomatoes and olives, and cook for an additional two minutes.

Finish and serve

Stir in the tomato sauce and mix well.
Let it stand for a few minutes before serving.

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.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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

Butter or compound: Melted fat carries the flavor of the onion and green pepper and helps them soften.
Tomatoes: Add fresh tomato juice and body, giving the sauce its main moisture and mild acidity.
Tomato sauce: Adds concentrated tomato flavor and thickens the sauce with body.
Onion: Softens in the fat and adds savory sweetness as the base flavor.
Green pepper: Softens during cooking and adds a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable note.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Eggplantfits better
Potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, tomato, olive, sauce. 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.