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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A fruit and vegetable sauce flavored with vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 225 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, mangoes, and onions.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot.

  2. Add the spices in a bag and cook until done.

Jar

  1. Seal the sauce in glass jars.

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 + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Mango + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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, bulk and moisture of the sauce.
Mangoes
Add sweetness and fruity flavour that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aromatic flavour as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the spices in a bag and cook until done. Spices left in a bag release flavour slowly and evenly, so the sauce tastes balanced rather than harsh. Cooking until the sauce has thickened is what gives it body, and the record gives no sign of when that point is reached.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mango, vinegar, sugar. 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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Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

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