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Sauce

Indian Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with apples, onions, red pepper, raisins, vinegar, cayenne, mustard, ginger, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Indian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, apples, onions, and red pepper.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine all ingredients: tomatoes, apples, onions, red pepper, raisins, salt, vinegar, cayenne pepper, mustard, ginger, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture over medium heat, stirring often until well combined.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar and apples.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and savoury base of the sauce.
Apples
Add tartness and pectin that help the sauce thicken as it cooks.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Boil over medium heat, stirring often. Sugar and fruit can scorch on the bottom of the pot before the sauce thickens. Frequent stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, apple, onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, apple, onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, ginger. 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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