Name: Chutney
Ingredients: 1 cup stoned raisins; 2 cloves garlic; 1 shallot; 2-3 chillies; 2 teaspoons mustard; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 sour apple; ½ cup brown sugar; ½ cup vinegar

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

Pound the raisins, garlic, shallot, chillies, mustard, salt, and sour apple together until well mixed.
Add the brown sugar and vinegar, and mix thoroughly.

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.

Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,053 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins: Provide sweetness and chewy body that thickens the chutney as it mixes.
Sour apple: Adds tartness and fruity bulk to balance the sugar.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and depth, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the chutney its sharp, bright character.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma that mellows as the chutney sits.

Swap the apple

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

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Cherryfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, clove, garlic, shallot, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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.