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Sauce

Pepper Sauce

A sauce made from bell peppers, vinegar, water, horseradish, onions, pepper pods, salt, spice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,784 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a kettle and boil until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Season to taste with salt, spice, and a little sugar.

  4. Boil again for 10 minutes.

  5. Bottle and cork the sauce.

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. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Bell peppers
Provide the main body and sweet, vegetal flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the sauce stable.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften during boiling.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat and aroma.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Boiling until soft is not enough; pressing the cooked solids through a sieve breaks them down into a smooth, even sauce. Skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse, lumpy texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Radishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, horseradish, 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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