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Tomato Puree

A thick tomato puree made with stock, herbs, onion, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 and thicken

  1. Combine the tomatoes, brown stock, bay leaf, parsley, celery, and sugar in a saucepan and simmer thoroughly.

  2. In a separate sauté pan, melt the butter and add the onion; cook until the onion is soft but not browned.

  3. Stir in the flour and mix well.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the onion mixture with the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper.

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

  3. Heat again and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown stock
Provides the liquid base and savory body for the puree.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and forms a fat base for the flour.
Flour
Thickens the puree as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in butter.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Cook the onion until soft but not browned. Gentle cooking softens the onion and draws out its sweetness. Browning adds caramel and bitter notes and darkens the color, changing the pale, clean flavor of the puree.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, celery, sugar, butter, pepper, 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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