Name: Indian Chutney
Ingredients: ½ pound sour apples, peeled, cored, and chopped; ½ pound tomatoes; ½ pound brown sugar; ½ pound stoned raisins; ¼ pound onions; ¼ pound garlic; 2 ounces cayenne pepper; 2 ounces ground ginger; 1 quart lemon juice

Why it works: Onion and garlic 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 ↓

Indian Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the sour apples into small square pieces.
Combine the chopped apples with tomatoes, brown sugar, raisins, onions, garlic, cayenne pepper, ground ginger, and lemon juice, and mix all ingredients well.

Store

Transfer the mixture to a closely covered jar.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,402 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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 body, giving the chutney its bulk and bright, sharp flavour.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the lemon juice and spices.
Lemon juice: Supplies acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the chutney.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they soften in the mixture.
Onions: Contribute savoury body and aroma that build the base of the chutney.
Cayenne pepper: Adds heat, giving the chutney its sharp, spicy bite.

Swap the raisin

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

Mangofits better
Limefits better
Plumfits better
Raisinthe original

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