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Chutney

A preserved apple chutney with sugar, ginger, tamarind, raisins, chillies, garlic, shallots, mustard seed, sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the apples.

  2. Finely chop the chillies, garlic, and shallots.

Cook the apples

  1. Boil the apples in the vinegar until they become a pulp.

  2. Transfer the apple pulp to a basin and let it cool.

Mix and store

  1. Once the apples are cold, add all the other ingredients.

  2. Put the mixture into bottles and place them near the fire for several days.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + tamarindtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Tamarind + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into a pulp that forms the body of the chutney.
Vinegar
Acidity that softens the apples and helps preserve the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar and chillies.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and body to the chutney.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent flavour and a slight bite to the chutney.
Tamarinds
Add tartness and a deep, fruity sourness.

The step that matters

Let the apple pulp cool fully before adding the other ingredients. Adding ingredients to hot pulp can affect their texture and flavour, and the cooled pulp lets the mixture combine evenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, tamarind, raisin, garlic, shallot, mustard):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, tamarind, raisin, garlic, shallot, mustard. 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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