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Chili Sauce

A fermented tomato and pepper sauce with onions, sugar, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 silver onions and red peppers finely.

Cook the sauce

  1. Combine the onions, peppers, tomatoes, brown sugar, vinegar, water, and salt in a large pot.

  2. Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours until soft and beginning to thicken.

Seal

  1. Seal the sauce hot in sterilized jars.

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. Tomato + cidertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pepper + cidertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,234 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Silver onions
Provide the bulk of the sauce and soften into a thick, savoury base as they stew.
Ripe tomatoes
Break down during long stewing to add body, moisture and a fruity acidity.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness and deepens the colour.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. Too much heat can scorch the sugar and sticky vegetables on the pot bottom and burn the sauce. Slow, gentle simmering lets the onions and tomatoes soften and reduce evenly, so the sauce thickens without catching.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, sugar, cider. 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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