Skip to main content
Main

Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with onions, peppers, and spices simmered for 1.5 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.

  2. In a large pot, combine all ingredients.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 hours.

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. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk, moisture and acidity that form the body of the sauce.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness that mellows as they cook down.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor and texture to the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes with sweetness and depth.

The step that matters

Simmer for 1.5 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets water evaporate so the sauce thickens and the vegetables break down into a smooth, cohesive texture. Too hard a boil can scorch the sugars at the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More chili sauce recipes

Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes