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Tomato Chutney

A preserved tomato condiment made with tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, spices, raisins, garlic, and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Slice the tomatoes and place them in a jar with sugar and vinegar.

  2. Cover the jar and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the mixture becomes a pulp.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and rest

  1. Stone and chop the raisins finely, and peel and chop the garlic.

  2. Mix the chopped raisins and garlic with the pulp and add sufficient cochineal to color it.

  3. Place the mixture in a jar and stir every day for a week until ready for bottling.

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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and pulp that the chutney is built on.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the chutney.
Demerara sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken and preserve the mixture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness as they soften.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savory depth.

The step that matters

Baking until a pulp forms. Under-baking leaves the tomatoes watery and chunky, while over-baking can scorch the sugar. Slow heat lets moisture evaporate gradually so the mixture thickens evenly into a smooth pulp.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, mustard, ginger, pepper, sugar, garlic. 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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