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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with onions, peppers, sugar, vinegar, and salt, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 225 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald and peel the tomatoes.

  2. Chop the onions and peppers very finely.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

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 + mangotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together225 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Mango + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together471 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 main body, moisture and fresh tomato flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften into the sauce.
Mango peppers
Contribute pungent flavor and some heat to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Long boiling evaporates water and lets the pectin in the tomatoes and onions set the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and make it bitter.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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