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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with peppers, onions, celery, spices, sugar, and vinegar, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grind the tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and celery.

  2. Put the ground mixture in a kettle with salt, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, and sugar.

  3. Boil for 1 hour.

  4. Add the cider vinegar.

  5. Boil until thick, stirring very frequently.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the sauce's body and provide its base flavor and moisture.
Green peppers
Add bulk and a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and sweetness as they cook down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic spice that gives the sauce its characteristic flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until thick, stirring very frequently. Once the vinegar is added, the sauce thickens as water evaporates. Stirring often prevents sugars and solids from scorching on the bottom of the kettle, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

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