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Apricot-jam Chutney

A sweet and spicy chutney made from apricot jam, raisins, ginger, garlic, chillies, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,402 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apricot-jam Chutney

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Weigh the ingredients after picking and cleaning.

  2. Stone and chop the raisins.

  3. Pound the ginger, garlic, and chillies separately into a paste with a little vinegar.

Cook and bottle

  1. Mix all ingredients well and boil for 40 minutes until it thickens.

  2. When cooled, transfer to bottles and use as needed.

  3. For a milder chutney, reduce the amount of chillies and mustard.

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. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  2. Apricot + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together341 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apricot + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Apricot jam
Provides the main sweetness and fruit body of the chutney.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during boiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during the long boil.
Dried chillies
Provide heat and a sharp, pungent flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling until it thickens. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sugars and acids, so the chutney sets to a spoonable thickness. Stopping too early leaves it runny and less stable in the bottle.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, garlic, ginger, vinegar):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, garlic, ginger, 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.

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