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Sauce

Red Chile Sauce

A sauce made from dried chile peppers, hot water, vegetable oil, onion, garlic, cumin, and Mexican oregano.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and mexican oregano share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Red Chile Sauce

2 cups
Timeabout an hour

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chiles

  1. Wipe chile peppers with a damp cloth to clean. See warning for handling instructions.

  2. Break off stems, and remove seeds.

  3. Soak chili peppers in hot water until softened, about an hour.

  4. Taste the soaking water. If it is bitter, replace it with fresh water.

  5. Purée chili pepper and water mixture in a blender.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the oil in a pan, add onion, garlic, and seasonings.

  2. Once the onions are cooked, add the chili purée to the pan. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Return mixture to the blender, and purée. See warning.

  4. Pour sauce through a sieve. Use a spoon to stir and press the mixture against the sieve to extract all the sauce.

  5. Add salt to taste. If the sauce is a little bitter, some sugar can be added to compensate.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

186Calories
2 gProtein
14 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Cumin1 tsp ground (2.1g)8
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Mexican Oregano1 tsp dried (1.8g)5
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cumin + mexican oreganotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + mexican oreganotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + cumintop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,306 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried chile peppers
Provide the main body, colour and characteristic flavour of the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks down in the oil.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens when cooked.
Ground cumin
Adds warm, earthy aroma to the sauce.
Mexican oregano
Adds herbal aroma that blooms in the warm oil.

The step that matters

Taste the soaking water. Chile skins and seeds can release bitter compounds into soaking water. Replacing bitter water prevents that bitterness carrying into the sauce, and the sauce is simmered and strained, so off-flavours carry through.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, garlic, cumin, mexican oregano):

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Oreganofits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, garlic, cumin, mexican oregano. 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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