Skip to main content
Main

Chilli Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Chilli Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, bell peppers, and onions finely.

Cook the sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture together until it thickens moderately.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in the celery seed.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 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 and body of the sauce as they break down during boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Balances the acidity and vinegar with sweetness and adds depth.
Onions
Add savoury flavour and body as they soften into the sauce.
Green bell peppers
Contribute fresh, vegetal flavour and bulk to the sauce.

The step that matters

Just before removing from heat, stir in the celery seed.. Celery seed has a volatile aroma that fades with prolonged heat, so adding it at the end keeps its flavour noticeable in the finished sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, clove, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes