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Tomato Chutney

A preserved tomato chutney made with tomatoes, spices, vinegar, sugar, salt, apples, onions, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Boil all ingredients in a preserving pan for three hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve using a wooden spoon.

  2. Bottle the chutney when cold and cover.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and moisture that cook down into the chutney's body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and helps preserve the chutney.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and helps preserve the chutney.
Apples
Add body and natural pectin, helping the chutney thicken as it cooks.
Onions
Add savoury bulk and mellow sweetness as they soften during cooking.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury flavour that mellows with long cooking.

The step that matters

Boil for three hours. Long simmering evaporates water and concentrates the mixture, so it thickens and the sugar and vinegar work to preserve it. Cooking it too briefly leaves it watery and less stable.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, allspice, garlic, vinegar, pepper, sugar, onion. 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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