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Sauce

Chili Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Boil the onions and green peppers in the vinegar until soft.

  2. Add the tomatoes and simmer together for nearly an hour.

  3. Stir in the allspice, cloves, and cinnamon.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply moisture that reduces into a thick body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the sauce and extracts flavor from the softened vegetables.
Onions
Soften during boiling and add savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the base.
Green peppers
Add a grassy, fresh bitterness and some body as they soften in the vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.

The step that matters

Simmering with the tomatoes for nearly an hour. Tomatoes are thick and sugary, so they can scorch on the bottom of the pan during a long simmer. Stirring often and keeping the heat gentle lets the sauce thicken evenly and keeps the flavor clean.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar, vinegar, allspice, clove, 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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