Skip to main content
Main

Indian Chutnee

A sweet and spicy fruit chutney made with apples, tomatoes, raisins, chilies, ginger, garlic, shallots, horse-radish, mint, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Radish and mint work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 33 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the apples thicker than a penny and cut into small squares.

  2. Chop the muscatel raisins, red chilies, garlic, shallots, mint, and horse-radish.

  3. Mix all ingredients together in a pot.

Cook

  1. Add lemon juice or vinegar and simmer gently until clear.

  2. If too dry, add more lemon juice or vinegar; if too liquid, reduce on the fire.

  3. The chutney should be syrupy, with tender ingredients but not boiled to a pulp.

Bottle and store

  1. When cold, stir well to mix all ingredients evenly.

  2. Transfer the chutney into wide-mouthed pickle bottles, cork them tightly, and cover with bladder or resin.

  3. Store in a cool place.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Radish + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Ginger + minttop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together647 recipes

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

  4. Horse + radishtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together528 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

  5. Ginger + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,402 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

Sharp apples
Provide body and tartness, breaking down slightly to give the chutney its texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the chutney thicken into a syrupy consistency as it cooks.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Provides acidity that balances sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Red chilies
Supply heat and pungency to the chutney.
Muscatel raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until syrupy, not pulped. Simmering gently lets the liquid reduce and the sugars concentrate so the chutney sets syrupy. Boiling hard breaks the apples and fruit down into a pulp, and too much reduction leaves it dry and sticky.

Flavor stand-ins for the raisin

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

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Mangobetter flavor fit
  3. Cherrybetter flavor fit
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, tomato, sugar, ginger, garlic, shallot, horse. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Horseradish SauceIllustrationHorseradish Sauce23 recipesIllustration of Horseradish ButterIllustrationHorseradish Butter6 recipesIllustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipes