Chilli Sauce

A large-batch tomato relish of the type nearly every American household book carried around 1900. The quantities are generous and the spicing, by modern taste, is very heavy.

• TeacupfulA teacup in this period is usually reckoned at about 3/4 cup, though the measure was not standardised; on that reading 8 teacupfuls is roughly 6 cups of vinegar. Use cider vinegar of 5 percent acidity.
• Scale and yieldTwenty-four ripe tomatoes is about 8 lb; with the onions and peppers this fills a large preserving pan and cooks down to somewhere between 3 and 4 quarts. Halve or quarter the whole recipe if you have an ordinary stockpot.
• Peel the tomatoesThe instruction is omitted here but assumed: dip the tomatoes in boiling water, slip the skins, and core them. Unpeeled tomatoes leave curls of skin through the finished sauce.
• Green peppersThese are sweet peppers, not chillies, and nothing in the recipe is hot: the ginger gives a faint pungency and the cinnamon none. Add a fresh hot pepper or two if you want heat.
• The cinnamonFour tablespoonfuls of ground cinnamon in one batch is far more than current taste expects and will dominate everything. A tablespoon, tasted and adjusted near the end of cooking, is closer to a modern palate.
• Three hoursThe long boil is there to reduce watery field tomatoes to a thick sauce. Judge by consistency rather than the clock: it is done when a spoon drawn through the pan leaves a track that closes slowly. Stir often in the last hour, as the sugar will catch.
• Keeping itThe recipe stops at the boil and gives no processing directions. Treat it as a refrigerator relish, good for several weeks in clean jars, or freeze it in portions. For shelf-stable jars, follow a current tested water-bath procedure for tomato relish rather than simply filling hot jars.
• Pan materialUse stainless steel or enamel. Three hours of vinegar in bare aluminium or cast iron will pick up a metallic taste and dull the colour.