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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A sauce made from onion, red peppers, tomatoes, salt, brown sugar, vinegar, and cloves, simmered for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours, stirring well occasionally.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide bulk, moisture and natural acidity that forms the body of the sauce.
Red peppers
Add sweetness and vegetable body that softens into the sauce during long cooking.
Onion
Adds savory depth and body as it softens and breaks down during simmering.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a rounded molasses flavor that balances the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours, stirring well occasionally. A gentle simmer lets water evaporate and the vegetables break down slowly, thickening the sauce evenly. Too vigorous a boil can scorch the sugar and tomatoes on the bottom of the pot, so regular stirring is needed.

Swap the onion

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

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

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