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Chutney Sauce

A sweet and spicy tomato chutney made with tomatoes, raisins, onions, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chutney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chutney

  1. In a large pot, boil the vinegar, brown sugar, and spices for five minutes.

  2. Add the chopped tomatoes, raisins, and onions to the pot.

  3. Boil the mixture for one hour.

Seal

  1. Seal the chutney in hot jars.

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and tartness that the chutney cooks down into a thick texture.
Onions
Add savoury body and sweetness as they soften during the long simmer.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the chutney as it reduces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they plump in the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for one hour. A full hour of steady boiling lets excess moisture evaporate so the chutney thickens. Stopping early can leave it runny and less stable for storage.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, raisin, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, mustard, 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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