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Dessert

Chutney

A preserved chutney made from tomatoes, apples, onions, peppers, raisins, vinegar, mustard seed, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and grind the tomatoes, apples, onions, red peppers, and raisins.

Make the chutney

  1. Boil the vinegar, mustard seed, coarse sea salt, and sugar together in a pot.

  2. Once cool, mix the boiled mixture thoroughly with the ground vegetables.

  3. Seal the chutney in jars while cold.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the chutney as they break down while cooking.
Apples
Add pectin and tartness that help the chutney thicken and balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the chutney and helps preserve it along with the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the chutney its tang and helps keep it preserved.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Mix the boiled mixture in only once it has cooled. Adding the hot vinegar-sugar mixture to the ground vegetables could partly cook them unevenly and affect texture. Letting it cool first keeps the fruit and vegetables fresh-textured and mixes them evenly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, apple, onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, apple, onion, pepper, vinegar, mustard, 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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