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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with horseradish, salt, celery seed, sugar, pepper, vinegar, onions, and peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes, cut them in halves, and remove all the seeds.

  2. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and peppers finely.

Cook

  1. Mix all the ingredients together in a porcelain-lined kettle.

  2. Simmer slowly for 2½ hours.

Bottle

  1. Put the sauce into bottles, cork, and seal.

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

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, providing body, moisture and mild sweetness as they cook down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps keep it stable in storage.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity and vinegar with sweetness and adds depth as it caramelises during simmering.
Onions
Contribute savoury flavour and body to the sauce as they soften during simmering.
Peppers
Add heat and fresh, vegetal flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 2½ hours. A slow simmer lets the chopped vegetables break down and the liquid reduce evenly, thickening the sauce. Too hard a boil can scorch the sugar and sticking on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, horseradish, celery, sugar, vinegar, onion, 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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