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Dessert

Chutney Sauce

A fruit and spice chutney made with apples, figs, tomatoes, sugar, cayenne, ginger, garlic, onions, lemon juice, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion 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 ↓

Chutney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pound the sour apples, figs, tomatoes, brown sugar, and salt together.

  2. In a mortar, mix the garlic and onions until well combined.

  3. Add the ground cayenne pepper and ginger to the garlic and onion mixture.

  4. Combine the pulp with lemon juice and vinegar in a jar.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Place the jar in a warm spot for a month, stirring twice a day.

  2. After a month, pour oil over the top and cork tightly in bottles.

  3. Store the thick chutney in wide-mouthed bottles for table use.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Apple + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Sour apples
Provide tartness and pectin that help the chutney thicken as it breaks down.
Figs
Add sweetness and body, giving the chutney its thick, mellow texture.
Tomatoes
Contribute moisture and body to the pulp, softening into the thick chutney.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon juice.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the chutney and sharpens its flavor over time.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness of the fruit and sugar.

The step that matters

Standing warm for a month. Long standing lets the acid and sugar slowly soften the fruit and blend the spices into a mellow, thick chutney. Stirring twice a day keeps the mixture evenly mixed so it breaks down uniformly and does not separate.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, tomato, sugar, pepper, ginger, garlic, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, tomato, sugar, pepper, ginger, garlic, onion. 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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