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Chili Sauce

A tomato-based sauce with onions, green peppers, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.

  2. Add the vinegar, salt, sugar, mace, allspice, cinnamon, and ginger.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 2 hours, stirring well.

Bottle

  1. Once cooled, bottle the chili sauce.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Provide the main body and bulk of the sauce, along with moisture and mild acidity.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness that develops as they cook down.
Green peppers
Contribute fresh, vegetal flavor and some texture to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes with sweetness.

The step that matters

Long simmer with stirring. Cooking for two hours reduces the liquid and concentrates flavors. Stirring well prevents the sugars and solids from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, pepper, vinegar, sugar, allspice, cinnamon. 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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