Name: Chili Sauce
Ingredients: 18 large ripe tomatoes; 4 onions; 4 peppers, chopped fine; 2 tablespoons salt; 2 tablespoons cloves; 2 tablespoons cinnamon; 1 tablespoon allspice; 1 tablespoon nutmeg; 1 cup vinegar

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the onions and peppers finely.
Combine all ingredients in a large pot.
Boil for one hour, stirring occasionally.
Bottle the sauce while hot.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes: Provide the bulk, water and acidity that form the body of the sauce.
Onions: Add savory sweetness and aromatic body as they soften during the long simmer.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Mustardfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, vinegar. 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.