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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with peppers, onions, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and vinegar, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Chop the tomatoes and onions separately very fine.

  3. Chop the peppers and add them to the tomatoes and onions.

Cook

  1. Add the salt, sugar, cinnamon, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 4 hours.

  3. Taste before finishing to adjust sweetness.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply its body and fresh acidity as they cook down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Peppers
Add savory flavor and a mild bite to the sauce.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic sweetness as they soften in the simmer.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 4 hours. Long boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sauce, so it thickens and the flavors meld. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, and the vinegar taste stays harsh.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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