Name: Tamarind Chutney
Ingredients: 4 lb tamarinds; ½ lb dates; 4 lb green ginger; 4 lb raisins; ½ lb onions; 4 lb chili peppers; 4 tbsp brown sugar; 2 tbsp coarse sea salt

Why it works: Tamarind and ginger 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 ↓

Tamarind Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Pound all ingredients with vinegar.
Rub the mixture through a sieve.
Bottle and seal the chutney.

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.

Tamarind + gingertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together325 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Tamarind + raisintop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

Tamarinds: Provide the sour, fruity base that gives the chutney its main acidity and body.
Dates: Add natural sweetness and a thick, sticky texture that helps bind the chutney.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and moisture, softening during pounding into the sauce.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the sourness of the tamarind.
Chili peppers: Add heat and pungency to the chutney.
Green ginger: Adds sharp, aromatic warmth that cuts through the sweetness.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tamarind, ginger, raisin, onion, pepper, sugar):

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Mangofits better
Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tamarind, ginger, raisin, onion, pepper, sugar. 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.