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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with onions, peppers, vinegar, sugar, salt, and optional cinnamon.

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 ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the tomatoes in a pot by themselves for a while.

  2. Cook the onions and peppers with a little water in another pot.

  3. Combine the cooked tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and cook until the mixture reduces by half.

  4. Add a stick of cinnamon during cooking, if desired.

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 liquid that reduces into a thick sauce.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and body as they soften during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.

The step that matters

Reducing the combined mixture. Cooking until the mixture reduces by half concentrates flavor and thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can scorch the sugars on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, onion, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, onion, vinegar, sugar. 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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Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

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