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Sauce

Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with apples, onions, spices, and vinegar, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the tomatoes, onions, and apples.

  2. Pour vinegar over the chopped ingredients and add sugar, salt, and spices.

  3. If the tomatoes are too moist, drain some liquid before boiling.

  4. Boil the mixture for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

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

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

  5. Ginger + peppertop 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply most of its liquid, which the long boil reduces.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and sour apples.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve its flavour.
Sour apples
Add tartness and body, and their natural pectin helps the sauce thicken as it cooks.
Onions
Soften during boiling, adding savoury depth and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Draining excess liquid from the tomatoes. Extra water dilutes the flavour and lengthens the reduction, so the sauce can stay thin after hours of boiling. Draining moist tomatoes first lets the mixture concentrate and thicken properly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, apple, vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, 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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