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Indian Chutney

A preserved apple chutney with raisins, tomatoes, and spices, boiled and strained into bottles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Indian Chutney

Why it works: Onion and garlic 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 ↓

Indian Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples, then chop them.

Cook

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine the chopped apples, shallots, onions, tomatoes, strained lemon juice, salt, garlic, ginger, red pepper, raisins, and vinegar.

  2. Boil slowly until the mixture is quite tender.

Finish and bottle

  1. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  2. Transfer to clean, dry bottles and cork or tie down tightly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + garlictop 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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide the main body and tart flavour that the chutney is built on.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar and apples.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the chutney.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness and soft, chewy texture as they soften during cooking.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body as they soften during the slow boil.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the mixture is quite tender. Gentle simmering lets the apples, onions and raisins break down evenly and thicken the mixture. Boiling too hard can scorch the sugar and fruit on the bottom of the kettle and leave uneven texture.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, tomato, shallot, onion, garlic, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, tomato, shallot, onion, garlic, ginger. 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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