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Sauce

Tomato Sauce

A preserved tomato sauce made with tomatoes, vinegar, salt, spices, sugar, garlic, and apples, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat.

  3. Simmer for 5 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide its main liquid and body as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
Apples
Contribute pectin and body, thickening the sauce as they break down during simmering.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savory depth that mellows during long simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer for 5 hours, stirring occasionally. A long, gentle simmer drives off water and concentrates the flavors, while occasional stirring keeps solids from scorching on the bottom of the pot and sticking. Too vigorous a boil can burn the sugar and tomatoes.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

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

  1. Limebetter flavor fit
  2. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  3. Cherrybetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

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