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Governor's Sauce

A tomato sauce with onions, peppers, mustard seed, allspice, brown sugar, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Governor's Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and let stand overnight.

  2. In the morning, pour off the liquid and place the mixture in a preserving kettle.

Cook and jar

  1. Add enough vinegar to cover the mixture, along with the chopped onions, chopped peppers, brown sugar, and allspice.

  2. Let simmer until soft.

  3. Put the sauce in jars and keep them airtight.

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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 break down into a soft, thick base when simmered.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the sliced tomatoes overnight, concentrating their flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Let simmer until soft. Long, gentle simmering breaks down the cell walls of the tomatoes, onions and peppers so the sauce becomes smooth and cohesive. Stopping too early leaves chunky, raw-tasting pieces, while boiling hard can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, mustard, vinegar, onion, allspice, 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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