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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with vinegar, sugar, spices, and seasonings, simmered and boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sauce

  1. Stew the tomatoes for 1 hour.

  2. Add vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, onions, red pepper, horseradish, salt, mustard, black pepper, and celery seed.

  3. Boil for 1 hour.

Bottle

  1. Cork tightly.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide body, moisture and fruity acidity.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and tomato acidity.
Onions
Provide savoury depth and aroma as they soften into the sauce.
Red pepper
Adds sweet pepper flavour and a little colour to the sauce.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Boil for 1 hour. A long, steady boil reduces the excess liquid so the sauce thickens, and it lets the vinegar, spices and vegetables blend into one balanced flavour. Cutting it short leaves the sauce thin and sharp.

Swap the onion

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

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

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