Name: Cold Chili Sauce
Ingredients: 12 medium-sized onions, chopped; 9 red peppers, chopped; ½ peck (about 15-20) ripe tomatoes, scaled and peeled; 4 cups sugar; 4 cups vinegar; ½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon; 2 tablespoons ground allspice; 1 tablespoon ground cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cold Chili Sauce

Ingredients

12 medium-sized onions, chopped
9 red peppers, chopped
½ peck (about 15-20) ripe tomatoes, scaled and peeled
4 cups sugar
4 cups vinegar
½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons ground allspice
1 tablespoon ground cloves

Directions

Prepare

Chop the onions and red peppers.
Scale and peel the tomatoes.
In a large bowl, mix the chopped onions, red peppers, and peeled tomatoes.

Make the sauce

Add the sugar, vinegar, coarse sea salt, ground cinnamon, ground allspice, and ground cloves.
Mix thoroughly, adding the vinegar last.
The sauce is ready for use and will keep without sealing.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 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 bulk of the sauce and its liquid, forming the base texture.
Onions: Add savory body and sweetness as they soften into the sauce.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the sauce stable.
Red peppers: Contribute sweetness, color and a mild, fresh pepper flavor.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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.