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Dessert

Apple Chutney

A sweet and spicy apple preserve made with apples, raisins, vinegar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Apple Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Dry the chillies and mustard seed in the oven, being careful not to burn them, and remove the husks.

  3. Chop the raisins, garlic, and shallots.

Cook the apples

  1. Boil the apples in vinegar with ginger root until soft. Remove the ginger root.

Combine

  1. Mix all the ingredients together, adding more vinegar if necessary.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into soft pulp that forms the body of the chutney.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the chutney while adding depth of flavour.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that softens the apples and sharpens the overall flavour.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour when dried and mixed in.

The step that matters

Drying the chillies and mustard seed in the oven. Low, even heat releases aroma without scorching. Burnt spices turn bitter and can spoil the flavour of the whole batch, so watch them closely.

Swap the apple

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

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

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