Name: Hot Sauce for Meats
Ingredients: 4 onions, chopped; 2 cups sugar; 32 tomatoes, chopped; 1 quart vinegar; 4 peppers, chopped; 2 tablespoons salt; 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon; 2 tablespoons ground cloves; 3 tablespoons red pepper

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Hot Sauce for Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a large pot, combine the onions, sugar, tomatoes, vinegar, peppers, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and red pepper.
Cook the mixture over medium heat until it thickens.

Finish and bottle

Strain the sauce to remove solids.
Bottle the hot sauce and seal.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 and liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks.
Onions: Add savory sweetness and bulk that breaks down into the sauce as it simmers.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the finished sauce.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and heat of the peppers and vinegar.
Peppers: Provide the main chili heat and pepper flavor of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until it thickens. Cooking drives off water and softens the solids so the sauce reduces and thickens. Too little cooking leaves it thin and watery, while overheating can scorch the sugar and tomatoes on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Cucumberfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, tomato, vinegar, pepper, cinnamon, clove. 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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Hot Sauce for Meats