Name: Chili Pepper Sauce
Ingredients: two cups of best wine; one cup of sugar; two tablespoonfuls of salt; two teaspoonfuls of nutmeg; two teaspoonfuls of cloves; one teaspoonful of celery seed; six green peppers; two even teaspoonfuls of ground mace

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

Chop twenty ripe tomatoes, six green peppers, and four white onions finely.
Combine the chopped vegetables with two cups of best wine or cider vinegar, one cup of sugar, two tablespoonfuls of salt, two even teaspoonfuls of ground mace, two teaspoonfuls of nutmeg, two teaspoonfuls of cloves, and one teaspoonful of celery seed.
Boil the mixture for one hour.

Bottle and serve

Bottle the sauce while it is still hot.
Serve with baked beans.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

105Calories

1 gProtein

1 gFat

19 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Celery Seed	1 stalk (40g)	6
Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Mace	not in our table	0

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

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,668 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Wine: Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp acidity and the spices.
Green peppers: Contribute bulk and a fresh, vegetal bite to the chopped base.
Ground mace: Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Cloves: Add a strong, warm aroma that carries through the long boil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sugar, nutmeg, clove, celery, pepper):

Cinnamonfits better
Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar, nutmeg, clove, celery, pepper. 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.