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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with onions, celery, peppers, horseradish, spices, mustard, salt, sugar, and vinegar, boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Peel the tomatoes and let them stand for one hour to allow excess water to drain.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, onions, celery, sweet peppers, horseradish, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, black pepper, mustard, salt, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for two hours, stirring 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide acidity and liquid that reduces during boiling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar and horseradish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the sauce and brightens its flavor.
White onions
Add savory depth and body as they soften during the long boil.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that deepens during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for two hours, stirring occasionally. A long boil lets excess water evaporate and the sauce thicken. Occasional stirring prevents the tomatoes and sugar from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, celery, pepper, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, celery, pepper, horseradish, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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