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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with celery, onion, vinegar, sugar, and cornstarch, simmered for 30 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil celery, salt, onion, and vinegar for 30 minutes.

  2. Add sugar and tomatoes, then boil again.

  3. Make a paste with cornstarch and a little water, then add the paste to the mixture.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes after adding cornstarch.

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity, and flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and adds sweetness.
Onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the base.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch paste. Cornstarch must be mixed into a smooth paste with cold water before it goes into the hot mixture, otherwise it clumps. It then needs to boil to fully thicken and lose its raw starch taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, vinegar, tomato, sugar, pepper. 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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