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Sauce

Winter Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with peppers, onions, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and vinegar, boiled for 1.5 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper 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 ↓

Winter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the tomatoes and onions.

  2. Chop them very finely.

Cook

  1. Add the chopped peppers and other ingredients.

  2. Boil for 1.5 hours.

Bottle

  1. Put into bottles or glass 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture that cooks down into the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Onions
Contribute savoury aroma and flavour as they soften during cooking.
Green peppers
Add a vegetal bitterness and extra bulk to the sauce.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aromatic spice that flavours the whole sauce.

The step that matters

Boil for 1.5 hours. A long, steady boil evaporates water and concentrates the sauce, so it thickens and the flavours deepen. Too short a boil leaves it thin and watery, and it may not keep well in jars.

Swap the onion

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

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

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