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Chili Sauce

A spicy sauce made from peppers, onions, tomatoes, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, cider vinegar, brown sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and combine

  1. Chop the peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

  2. In a large pot, combine all ingredients.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 hours.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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

Peppers
Form the bulk of the sauce and add sweet, vegetal flavor as they soften.
Onions
Add body and sweetness as they break down during the long simmer.
Tomatoes
Supply moisture and body that cook down into the sauce, plus acidity.
Cider vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and keeps the sauce tangy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and deepens color during cooking.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and spice flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer for the full 3 hours. The long simmer reduces the liquid and thickens the sauce. A boil that is too hot can scorch the sugar and tomatoes on the pot bottom, leaving a burnt taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, tomato, clove, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, 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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