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Dessert

Tomato Chutney

A preserved tomato chutney made with tomatoes, apples, onions, red peppers, raisins, salt, brown sugar, ginger, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes and sprinkle ½ cup coarse sea salt over them.

  2. Let them drain for 24 hours.

Cook

  1. Add 3 onions, the chopped apples, and red peppers to the drained tomatoes.

  2. In a spice bag, combine the ginger and add it to the mixture along with the brown sugar.

  3. Cover everything with cider vinegar and let it simmer for 4 hours.

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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  5. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 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
Form the bulk of the chutney and give it its body and moisture.
Apples
Add pectin and body, helping the chutney thicken as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps build a thick, dark, glossy texture.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the chutney.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the chutney.

The step that matters

Let them drain for 24 hours.. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes. Skipping or shortening this drain leaves extra liquid to cook off during simmering, which can make the chutney thin and slow to thicken.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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