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Sauce

Chetney Sauce

A spiced sauce of raisins, acid fruit, sugar, ginger, salt, cayenne, garlic and vinegar, mixed to the consistency of thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chetney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stone four ounces of good raisins and chop them small with half a pound of crabs or other hard acid fruit.

  2. Grind the sugar, ginger, salt and cayenne pepper separately in a mortar as fine as possible.

Make the sauce

  1. Pound the fruits well and mix in the spices one by one, then beat them together until perfectly blended.

  2. Add vinegar gradually until the sauce is the consistency of thick cream.

Bottle

  1. Put the sauce into bottles with the garlic divided into cloves, and cork tightly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

241Calories
21 gProtein
2 gFat
36 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Crab100g cooked97
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 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

Raisins
Adds sweetness and a chewy, thick body to the sauce.
Crabs
Supplies tartness and pulp so the sauce has substance and bite.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the sharp fruit and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and thins the mixture to a pourable, creamy consistency.
Garlic
Contributes a pungent aroma and savoury flavour that mellows during storage.

The step that matters

Add vinegar gradually until the sauce is the consistency of thick cream. Vinegar thins the mixture quickly, so pouring it in all at once can make the sauce too runny. Adding it slowly lets you stop at the right thickness while the fruit and sugar still hold their body.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, crab, garlic, lemon, ginger, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, crab, garlic, lemon, ginger, pepper, vinegar. 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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