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Chili Sauce

A spicy sauce made from finely chopped peppers, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, sugar, spices, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the green sweet peppers, peeled tomatoes, onions, and cabbage very fine.

Cook

  1. Put the chopped mixture into a clean saucepan and cook slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Add the white sugar, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground mustard, and celery seeds.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour longer, adding coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Stir in the strong cider vinegar.

Bottle

  1. Bottle and store for use.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 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 body of the sauce, along with acidity and moisture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the vinegar's sharpness.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity, which sharpens flavor and helps preserve the sauce.
Celery seeds
Contribute a savory, aromatic flavor that defines the sauce's character.

The step that matters

Simmer for 1 hour longer, adding coarse sea salt to taste.. Long, slow simmering lets the water evaporate and the sauce thicken while the spices bloom and mellow. Salt should be added gradually and tasted near the end, since reduction concentrates its flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

More chili sauce recipes

Tomato 14Green Tomato 4Raw 3Sweet 3 See all 392 →

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