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Sauce

Hot Sauce

A hot sauce made with nasturtium flowers, vinegar, cayenne pepper, garlic, and eschalots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Hot Sauce

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 ↓

Hot Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the nasturtium flowers, garlic, eschalots, and cayenne pepper into a pickle jar.

  2. Pour boiling hot vinegar over the ingredients and cover the jar.

  3. Let it sit for 7 to 10 days.

  4. Strain the mixture through a cloth, similar to making ketchup.

  5. Store in a sealed container; it will improve with age.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Nasturtium flowers
Provide the main flavour and the peppery character of the sauce.
Vinegar
Extracts flavour from the solids and provides the acidity that preserves the sauce.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat, giving the sauce its hot sauce pungency.
Eschalots
Add savoury depth and mild sharpness to the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Pour boiling hot vinegar over the ingredients. Hot vinegar softens the plant material and begins extracting flavour and colour, while the acid helps preserve the sauce during the long resting period. Keeping the jar covered traps aromas that would otherwise escape.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, garlic. 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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