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Sauce

Chilli Sauce

A spicy tomato-based sauce with onions, peppers, mustard seed, brown sugar, salt, cider vinegar, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chilli Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot, using ground spices.

  2. Boil for 3 hours.

  3. Bottle the sauce while hot and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provides the main bulk, body and moisture that the sauce reduces into a thick, spreadable texture.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps keep the finished sauce stable.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deepens color and flavor as the sauce cooks down.
Sliced onions
Contribute savory flavor and soft body that thickens the sauce as it simmers.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter flavor that gives the sauce its sharp character.

The step that matters

Boiling for 3 hours. Long boiling evaporates water so the sauce thickens and its flavors concentrate. Too little time leaves it thin and watery, while the bottom can scorch if it is not stirred, since sugars caramelize and burn on direct heat.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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