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Southern Chili Sauce

A chunky chili sauce made with tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, sugar, spices, vinegar, celery, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Southern Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dice the tomatoes, onions, and sweet peppers, and mince the garlic finely.

Cook

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, spices, and vinegar together. Add the diced vegetables and garlic to the mixture.

  2. Boil the mixture for several hours until it reaches a good consistency.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and liquid that the sauce cooks down into.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and bulk that softens during long simmering.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Brings acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Sweet green peppers
Contribute fresh vegetal flavour and texture to the cooked sauce.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour and a little crisp texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for several hours. Long boiling evaporates water and thickens the sauce, while concentrating flavours. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, and the vegetables may not soften fully.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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