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Governor's Sauce

A pickled tomato sauce with peppers, onions, sugar, horseradish, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Governor's Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle salt over sliced tomatoes and let them stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, pour off the liquid.

  3. Put tomatoes in a kettle and cover with vinegar.

Cook and seal

  1. Add peppers, onions, brown sugar, horseradish, cloves, allspice, cayenne, and white pepper.

  2. Simmer until soft.

  3. Transfer to jars and seal tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and break down into a soft, spoonable body when simmered.
Onions
Add savory body and sweetness as they soften during the long simmer.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharp acidity and helps the sauce thicken.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp pungency that mellows during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and brightens its flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer until soft. Simmering must go long enough for the tomatoes and onions to break down fully. Undercooked pieces stay firm and leave the sauce watery and unevenly textured, while the acid and sugar keep the sauce stable as it reduces.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, onion, sugar, horseradish, 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.

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