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Preserve

Indian Chutney

A preserved condiment of pears, apples, tamarind, vinegar, sugar and spices, bottled for keeping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Indian Chutney

Why it works: Pear and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 649 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Indian Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and core the apples and pears.

  2. Cut the apples and pears into pieces.

  3. Boil the apples and pears in 2 pints of vinegar.

Make the flavourings

  1. Steam the tamarinds and brown sugar in a jar with the remaining vinegar.

  2. Finely chop the chillies.

  3. Pound the garlic and mustard seed in a mortar.

Combine and bottle

  1. Once cooled, mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Transfer the mixture into wide-mouthed bottles.

  3. Securely cork and seal the bottles.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pear + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Mustard + tamarindtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Garlic + tamarindtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tamarinds
Provide sourness and fruity tang that gives the chutney its character.
Vinegar
Acts as the main preservative and adds sharpness to balance the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sour and spicy flavours.
Pears
Add bulk and soft fruit texture once boiled down into the chutney.
Apples
Add bulk, pectin and soft fruit body to the chutney.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the chutney.

The step that matters

Securely cork and seal the bottles. Vinegar and sugar preserve the chutney only when air is excluded, so loose closures let it spoil and ferment over time.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, apple, garlic, sugar, mustard, tamarind, vinegar):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, apple, garlic, sugar, mustard, tamarind, 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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