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Chilli Sauce

A tomato-based sauce simmered with onions, peppers, celery, water, vinegar, salt, black pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chilli Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and coarsely chop the tomatoes, and place them in a kettle.

  2. Chop the onions, green peppers, and celery, and add them to the kettle.

  3. Add 1 pint of cold water to the kettle.

Cook and bottle

  1. Boil slowly for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Stir in the salt, vinegar, black pepper, and cayenne pepper, then boil everything together for 1 hour.

  3. Bottle the sauce while it is still boiling.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and base flavour of the sauce, breaking down into a thick, smooth body.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during the long simmer.
Green peppers
Contribute vegetal bite and aroma that give the sauce its savoury character.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 to 5 hours. Long, gentle simmering evaporates water and concentrates the sauce. Boiling too hard can scorch the bottom of the kettle, so the mixture needs regular stirring and a low, steady heat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, celery, 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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