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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with sweet and sharp peppers, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove seeds from the tomatoes and cut them in half.

  2. Cook the tomatoes until soft, then strain through a colander and measure the liquid.

  3. To the 5 quarts of strained tomatoes, add the chopped sweet and sharp peppers, onions, vinegar, sugar, salt, celery seed, mustard seed, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Cook the mixture until it thickens.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 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
Provide the main body and liquid that cooks down into the sauce.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften during cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Sweet peppers
Contribute body, mild sweetness and vegetable flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it thickens. Tomatoes contain a lot of water, so the sauce must simmer long enough for moisture to evaporate. Stopping early leaves it thin, while overcooking can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, vinegar, sugar, celery, mustard, cinnamon. 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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