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Sauce

Chile Sauce

A spicy tomato-based sauce made with peppers, onions, tomatoes, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chile Sauce

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chile Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot.

  2. Boil for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  3. Pour the sauce into bottles while hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and liquid base of the sauce.
Peppers
Supply the heat and pepper flavour, with seeds adding extra fire.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and body as it softens during the long boil.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and the heat of the peppers.

The step that matters

Boil for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. The long simmer evaporates water and thickens the sauce. Sugar and tomato solids can scorch on the base of the pot, so regular stirring keeps the sauce from burning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, tomato, sugar, allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, sugar, allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg. 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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