Skip to main content
Main

Chilli Sauce

A tomato, mango, and pepper sauce seasoned with sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 225 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chilli Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and mangoes finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil all ingredients together for two hours.

  2. Add cinnamon and cayenne pepper to taste.

  3. Bottle the sauce for 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. Tomato + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pepper + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mango + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the sauce as they break down during long boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Sweet pepper mangoes
Add fruity sweetness and fresh body to the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and adds sweetness.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and body as they soften while boiling.

The step that matters

Boil for two hours. Long simmering thickens the sauce by evaporating water and softens the chopped vegetables and fruit so they blend into a uniform texture. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and chunky.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, pepper, mango, sugar, cinnamon. 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.

More chili sauce recipes

Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes