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Chutney Sauce

A chutney sauce made from tomatoes, apples, raisins, onions, chili peppers, salt, sugar, vinegar, mustard seed, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chutney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the tomatoes, apples, raisins, chili peppers, and onions finely.

  2. Add the salt, brown sugar, vinegar, mustard seed, and ginger to the chopped mixture.

  3. Boil the mixture for two to three 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 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
Break down to add moisture and body, with mild acidity to the sauce.
Apples
Contain pectin, which helps the sauce thicken as it cooks.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture to the sauce.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they cook, adding savory depth and aroma.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Long boil of the mixture. Two to three hours of boiling evaporates water, thickening the sauce as its sugars concentrate. Sugar-rich mixtures can scorch on the bottom of the pot if the heat is too high or the sauce is left unattended.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, apple, sugar, vinegar, mustard, ginger, pepper. 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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