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Bombay Chutney

A sweet and sour chutney made with red pepper, onions, raisins, apples, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bombay Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Grind the base

  1. In a mortar, grind the red pepper, onions, and stoned raisins together.

Add and boil

  1. Add the grated sour apples, brown sugar, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Red pepper
Provides bulk, colour and a pungent, sharp flavour to the chutney.
Onions
Adds savoury depth and body as they soften during boiling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness as they soften.
Sour apples
Contribute acidity and pectin, helping the chutney thicken as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and apples.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.

The step that matters

Boiling for the full 15 minutes. The boil must run long enough for water to evaporate and the apple pectin to thicken the mixture. Sugar-rich mixtures can scorch on the base of the pan, so the pan needs watching while it boils.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, apple, sugar, vinegar. 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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