Name: Chili Sauce
Ingredients: 108 tomatoes; 10 mango peppers; 9 onions; 6 tablespoons salt; 4 tablespoons sugar; 4 tablespoons ginger; 1 tablespoon cloves; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 quart vinegar

Why it works: Clove and allspice 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

Prepare

Chop the tomatoes, mango peppers, and onions finely.
Boil the chopped mixture and then strain it through a sieve.

Cook and bottle

Add the vinegar and boil until fully cooked.
Place the spices in a bag and add to the mixture.
Bottle the sauce once it has cooled.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,620 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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: Provide the main body and liquid that cooks down into the sauce.
Onions: Add savory bulk and sweetness that deepen as they cook.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar: Balances the acidity and sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mango, pepper, sugar, ginger, clove, allspice. 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.