Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,923 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 2 tablespoons Crisco and 2 tablespoons flour in a saucepan.
Add strained tomato juice, onion juice, salt, and pepper.
Stir well and let it simmer in a double boiler for 5 minutes.
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.
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together32,460 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat, giving it body.
- Crisco
- Fat that coats the flour so it blends smoothly and cooks into a roux.
- Tomato juice
- Forms the liquid base and supplies the sauce's tomato flavor and acidity.
- Onion juice
- Adds savory onion aroma and flavor without solid pieces.
The step that matters
Stir well and simmer. Stirring keeps the flour from clumping as the liquid is added, and simmering cooks the starch so the sauce thickens smoothly and loses its raw flour taste.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, flour):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Okrabetter flavor fit
- Eggplantbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, flour. 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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