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Mustard Seed Chutney

A spicy chutney made with mustard seeds, butter, green chillies, ginger, tamarind, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and tamarind work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Mustard Seed Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Roast the mustard seed in the butter.

  2. Add the minced green chillies, crushed green ginger, and tamarind, removing any tamarind seeds.

  3. Season with a little pepper and salt, then mix all together and serve.

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. Ginger + tamarindtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Mustard + tamarindtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Tamarind + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard seed
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the chutney.
Butter
Carries the heat for roasting the seeds and adds richness to their flavour.
Green chillies
Add heat and a fresh, vegetal bite.
Green ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic pungency.
Tamarind
Supplies the sourness that balances the heat and pungency.

The step that matters

Roasting the mustard seed in the butter. Gentle roasting toasts the seeds and releases their nutty, pungent flavour. If the butter gets too hot or the seeds scorch, they turn bitter and the whole chutney tastes harsh.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, butter, tamarind, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, butter, tamarind, pepper. 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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