Name: Chili Sauce
Ingredients: 30 good-sized tomatoes; 2 lbs brown sugar; 6 peaches; 1 quart vinegar; 6 pears; 6 onions; 4 mangoes; mixed spices (cinnamon, cloves, allspice or mace); coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Peach and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 114 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the tomatoes, peaches, pears, onions, and mangoes.

Cook

Combine all ingredients in a large pot.
Place mixed spices in a muslin bag and add to the pot.
Cook over medium heat for 2 hours.
Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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.

Peach + peartop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together114 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peach + mangotop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together59 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together600 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Tomato + mangotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together225 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Provide the bulk and body of the sauce as they cook down.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Onions: Contribute savory depth and body as they soften during cooking.
Pears: Add soft texture and natural sweetness that thickens the sauce as it simmers.
Mangoes: Add fruity sweetness and body to the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Cucumberfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, peach, vinegar, pear, mango, cinnamon. 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.