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Gooseberry Chutney

A spicy and sweet chutney made from boiled gooseberries, sugar, raisins, cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Gooseberry Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the gooseberries, brown sugar, and raisins together as you would for jam.

  2. Add the cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar.

  3. Boil again for 20 minutes.

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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raisin + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together769 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Green gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit base and bulk that the chutney is built around.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the chutney thicken as it cooks.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the chutney.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.

The step that matters

Boil again for 20 minutes. Once the vinegar and seasonings are added, the mixture must simmer long enough to reduce and thicken. Too short a boil leaves it watery and less stable for storage.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, 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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