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Governor's Sauce

A preserved tomato and pepper sauce with onions, spices, and vinegar.

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 cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Governor's Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and sprinkle salt over them.

  2. Let them stand overnight.

  3. Drain off the liquid and put the tomatoes in a preserving kettle.

Cook and seal

  1. Add the chopped peppers, onions, spices, and enough vinegar to cover the ingredients.

  2. Simmer the sauce for 1.5 hours.

  3. Put the sauce in jars 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.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the sauce and its tart base flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Add savory depth and body as they soften during simmering.
Horseradish
Contributes pungent heat that mellows during long simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer the sauce for 1.5 hours. Long simmering evaporates excess liquid and softens the tomatoes and onions so the sauce thickens and the flavors blend. Stopping early can leave it thin and sharp-tasting.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, horseradish, onion, sugar, clove, allspice. 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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