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Dessert

Chutney

A sweet and spicy apple chutney made with apples, raisins, ginger, onions, garlic, mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel and finely chop the apples.

  2. Boil the chopped apples until reduced.

  3. Mix in the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine.

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  5. 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

Apples
Provide the bulk and pectin that thicken the chutney as it reduces.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a thick, glossy texture as the mixture cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy sweetness and body to the chutney.
Onions
Contribute savoury flavour and soft body as they cook down.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as the chutney cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the chopped apples until reduced. The apples must cook down long enough to thicken into a spreadable chutney. Stopping early leaves it runny, while over-reducing can scorch the sugar and vinegar mixture.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, onion, apple, mustard, garlic, 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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