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Bengal Chutney

A spicy fruit and vegetable chutney made with apples, tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, spices, raisins, and optional celery and peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bengal Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine apples, tomatoes, and onions in a pot, then cover with vinegar and bring to a boil until it becomes a mass.

  2. Boil slowly, then add brown sugar, salt, mustard seed, ground ginger, cayenne pepper, and raisins, mix well and boil again slowly.

  3. If desired, add chopped celery and peppers.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Apples
Break down into the body of the chutney and add tartness.
Tomatoes
Break down to add moisture and body to the chutney.
Onions
Soften and add savory depth to the mass.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and helps preserve the chutney.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil slowly after adding the sugar, salt and spices. Sugar, salt and vinegar thicken and concentrate the chutney as water evaporates. Boiling too hard can scorch the bottom of the pot, so stir often and keep the heat gentle.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, vinegar, sugar, 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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