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Indian Chutney

A sweet and spicy apple chutney made with apples, onions, raisins, mustard, ginger, cayenne, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Peel and coarsely chop the onions.

  3. Stone and quarter the raisins.

  4. Chop the garlic finely.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook the apples, onions, and garlic with salt, sugar, and vinegar until soft.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Season and store

  1. Add raisins, mustard, ginger, and cayenne; mix well.

  2. Transfer to a jar and let stand in a warm place overnight.

  3. Fill dry bottles or jars with the chutney and seal to exclude air.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Add tartness and pectin that give the chutney body as they break down.
Onions
Provide bulk and mellow sweetness as they cook down into the chutney.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps keep the chutney preserved.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Dry mustard
Adds pungent heat and sharpness to the flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the apples, onions, and garlic until soft. Cooking fully softens the fruit and vegetables so they can be pushed through a sieve into a smooth mixture. Sugar and vinegar concentrate as the mixture cooks, which helps preserve it.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, mustard, onion, sugar, pepper, clove, garlic. 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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