Name: Haitian Sauce
Ingredients: two teaspoons of hot yellow pepper; a finely chopped large onion; a half cup of chopped shallots; two finely chopped cloves of garlic; a half cup of lemon juice; a quarter cup of olive oil; salt and pepper

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,058 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Haitian Sauce

Timetwo hours

Ingredients

two teaspoons of hot yellow pepper
a finely chopped large onion
a half cup of chopped shallots
two finely chopped cloves of garlic
a half cup of lemon juice
a quarter cup of olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions

Prepare

Marinate onions and shallots in lime juice for two hours.

Cook and store

In a pan, bring this and all other ingredients to a boil.
Allow to cool and store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion: Adds savoury bulk and aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Shallots: Contribute a mild, sweet onion flavour that softens during marinating.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma and sharp savoury depth.
Lemon juice: Provides acidity that brightens the sauce and helps soften the onions and shallots.
Olive oil: Carries flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, rich body.
Hot yellow pepper: Supplies heat and fruity pepper flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, shallot, clove, garlic, lemon, olive):

Kalebetter flavor fit
Spinachbetter flavor fit
Chivebetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, shallot, clove, garlic, lemon, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.