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Chutney, Tomato

A tomato chutney made with tomatoes, vinegar, cloves, onions, ginger, brown sugar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chutney, Tomato

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Layer sliced tomatoes in a dish, sprinkling salt between each layer.

  2. Let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Drain off the resulting water.

Cook and store

  1. Combine all ingredients in a pan and simmer until tender.

  2. Strain and store in small airtight containers.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the chutney and break down into a thick, spreadable body when simmered.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the chutney.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, balancing the acidity of the vinegar.
Onions
Add savoury body and sweetness as they soften during simmering.
Preserved ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and a bit of sweetness to the chutney.

The step that matters

Draining the salted tomatoes. Salt draws water out of the tomatoes by osmosis. Draining off that liquid before cooking keeps the chutney thick rather than watery, so it sets to the right consistency.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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