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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A sweet and tangy sauce made from onions, green peppers, tomatoes, brown sugar, salt, and vinegar, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the onions and green peppers finely.

  2. Cut the tomatoes into pieces.

Cook and bottle

  1. In a large pot, combine the onions, green peppers, tomatoes, brown sugar, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 2½ hours.

  3. Bottle the sauce for later use.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide bulk and savoury sweetness as they soften during the long cook.
Green peppers
Add fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavour and body to the sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply the main liquid and body that reduces into a thick sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and rounds out the acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the sauce and helps it keep well once bottled.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 2½ hours. A long, steady boil evaporates water and concentrates the vegetables into a thick sauce. Too little time leaves it thin and watery, and vigorous boiling without stirring can scorch the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, sugar, 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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Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

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