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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A sweet and tangy sauce made from onions, green peppers, tomatoes, brown sugar, salt, and vinegar, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine the onions, green peppers, tomatoes, brown sugar, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 2.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

Bottle

  1. Once cooked, bottle the sauce for later use.

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.

  1. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Onions
Break down during simmering to give the sauce body and savory sweetness.
Ripe tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the liquid and body, cooking down into the sauce's base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, slightly bitter vegetal flavor and texture as they soften.

The step that matters

Simmering for 2.5 hours. Long, gentle simmering with occasional stirring thickens the sauce and concentrates flavor. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot, and the sauce must cook down enough to be safe and stable for bottling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, sugar, vinegar. 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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Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

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