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Dessert

Dried Fruit Chutney

A preserved chutney made from dried peaches, apricots, dates, raisins, sugar, vinegar, spices, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dried Fruit Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the dried peaches and apricots in enough water to cover for about 2 hours.

  2. Cut the soaked peaches and apricots into small pieces, along with the dates.

  3. Cook the fruit in the same soaking water until tender.

Make the chutney

  1. Add the sugar, vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and garlic to the pot.

  2. Cook for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Jar

  1. Seal the chutney in sterilized jars while hot.

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. Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Apricot + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried apricots
Provide fruity bulk and natural sweetness that thickens the chutney as it cooks down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the chutney and give it a thick, glossy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Dried dates
Contribute body, sweetness and a soft, jammy texture as they break down during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Long, gentle simmering lets the fruit soften and the liquid reduce into a thick chutney. Stirring prevents the sugars from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, apricot, raisin, sugar, vinegar, pepper, cinnamon):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, apricot, raisin, sugar, vinegar, pepper, 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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