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Sauce

Chilli Sauce

A spicy tomato-based sauce with onions, peppers, spices, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chilli Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped onions, red peppers, and prepared tomatoes.

  2. Add the coarse sea salt, ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg, ground ginger, vinegar, and sugar.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide bulk and a savoury base that softens as the sauce cooks.
Red peppers
Add body and sweet, mild pepper flavour to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Form the main liquid and body of the sauce, adding acidity and sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and vinegar with sweetness and helps the sauce thicken as it reduces.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Stirring keeps the chopped onions, peppers and tomatoes from sticking and scorching on the base of the pot. Medium heat lets the mixture come to a boil without burning before it simmers down.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, 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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