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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with onions, peppers, celery, vinegar, sugar, and spices simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with vinegar, sugar, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, mace, and salt.

  3. Boil the mixture rapidly for 1½ hours.

  4. Reduce heat and let it simmer for an additional 1½ to 2 hours.

  5. If using whole mixed spices, tie them in four small bags before adding.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Pepper + allspicetop 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 break down into a thick, body-rich base.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften during the long cooking.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances sweetness and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.

The step that matters

Simmering the long reduction. Sugar and finely chopped vegetables settle and scorch on the pot bottom during the long, low-heat simmer. Stirring regularly and keeping the heat low lets water evaporate slowly so the sauce thickens evenly without burning.

Swap the onion

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

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

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