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Preserve

Tomato Chutney

A preserved tomato and apple chutney made with mustard seed, ginger, onions, salt, cayenne, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure tomatoes are sound and not overripe.

  2. Break them into a preserving pan.

  3. Quarter the apples without peeling or coring.

  4. Add them to the pan.

  5. Chop the onions.

  6. Add them along with all other ingredients except the sugar.

Cook

  1. Add the sugar once the mixture has begun to soften.

  2. Boil the mixture slowly until it becomes a complete pulp that can be easily rubbed through a coarse sieve.

  3. Stir well.

Rest and bottle

  1. Let it sit for a day before bottling.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk of the pulp and body that forms the chutney.
Apples
Add pectin, which helps the chutney thicken and set as it cooks.
Onions
Add savoury depth and body to the pulp.
Soft moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the chutney while balancing the vinegar's acidity.
Malt vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the chutney.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until a complete pulp forms. Long, gentle boiling evaporates water and breaks down the fruit and vegetables so they thicken into a spreadable pulp. Cooking too fast can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pan, while stopping early leaves the chutney watery and unset.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, mustard, ginger, onion, pepper, malt, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, mustard, ginger, onion, pepper, malt, 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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