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English Chutney

A sweet and spicy tomato chutney made with tomatoes, raisins, peppers, peaches, onions, apples, spices, sugar, salt, vinegar, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

English Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix spices with brown sugar in a bowl.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  3. Boil slowly for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

Tomatoes
Provide bulk and moisture, breaking down into the body of the chutney.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during the long simmer.
Onions
Add savory depth and body as they soften and blend into the chutney.
Peaches
Contribute fruity sweetness and soft texture that thickens as they cook down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the chutney as the liquid reduces.
White vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 hours, stirring occasionally. A gentle, long simmer lets the liquid evaporate and the fruit break down into a thick chutney. Boiling too hard can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot, and infrequent stirring lets it stick and burn.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, raisin, pepper, peach, cinnamon, sugar, clove. 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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