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Tomato Puree

Tomato puree made by simmering tomatoes with aromatics, thickened with a butter‑flour roux, then sieved.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Tomato Puree

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the tomatoes

  1. Combine the tomatoes and water or stock in a granite-ware saucepan.

  2. Add the bay leaf, parsley, celery, peppercorns, and sugar.

  3. Simmer until the tomatoes are thoroughly soft.

Make the roux

  1. Heat the butter in another saucepan.

  2. Add the sliced onion and fry until soft but not browned.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook without browning.

  4. Add enough of the tomato mixture to the roux to dilute it.

  5. Stir the roux back into the remaining tomato.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve or strainer.

  3. Reheat before serving.

  4. Sprinkle with small croutons.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the puree.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onion and flour base.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as a roux, giving the puree body.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma when softened without browning.

The step that matters

Cook the roux without browning. Flour must cook gently in the butter so it loses its raw taste and thickens smoothly. Browning changes the colour and flavour and weakens the thickening power of the starch.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, celery, sugar, butter, onion, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, celery, sugar, butter, onion, flour. 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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