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Dessert

Apple Chutney

A sweet and tangy apple chutney made with apples, onion, raisins, green peppers, vinegar, currant jelly, sugar, lemon juice, ginger, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apple Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the apples, onion, raisins, and green peppers very finely.

Cook

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped ingredients with cider vinegar and currant jelly. Simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Add sugar, lemon juice, ground ginger, and salt. Cook for another hour, stirring almost constantly.

  3. Store in jars as canned fruit.

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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Sour apples
Provide the bulk of the chutney and tartness that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the chutney as it cooks down.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the chutney.
Currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and body, helping the chutney set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring almost constantly during the second hour. Sugar and fruit thicken and can scorch on the bottom of the pot as the liquid reduces. Frequent stirring keeps the mixture from burning and cooking unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, raisin, pepper, cider, vinegar, currant, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, pepper, cider, vinegar, currant, 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.

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