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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with sugar, vinegar, spices, onions, and pepper, simmered for two hours and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 and slice the tomatoes.

  2. Chop the onions very finely.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pot and boil slowly for 2 hours.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sifter.

Bottle and store

  1. Seal in bottles or glass jars.

  2. Store in a cool place during summer and a moderately cool place in winter.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and bulk of the sauce, breaking down into a thick pulp when cooked.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
White onions
Add savoury depth and body as they soften into the sauce during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Boiling slowly for 2 hours. A gentle simmer lets the tomatoes and onions break down and the liquid reduce evenly. Boiling too hard can scorch the bottom of the pot and burn the sugar, giving a bitter taste.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, ginger, clove, mustard, pepper):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, ginger, clove, mustard, 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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