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Tomato Chutney

A preserved tomato and apple chutney flavored with garlic, ginger, mustard seed, and vinegar.

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 ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Scald tomatoes, remove skins, slice them.

  2. In an earthenware pot, combine tomatoes, vinegar, salt, and finely chopped peeled and cored apples.

  3. Cook until fruit is soft, then rub mixture through a sieve.

Season and cook

  1. Add sugar, ginger, mustard seed, and chopped garlic, and boil gently for 30 to 45 minutes.

Store

  1. Pour chutney into a jar, cover, and let stand in a warm place for about 3 days.

  2. Bottle chutney, cork tightly, and ensure it is airtight.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 bulk and body of the chutney as they cook down into a soft pulp.
Sour cooking apples
Add pectin and tartness, helping the chutney thicken and balancing the sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the chutney.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps thicken the chutney as it cooks.
Garlic
Contributes a pungent, savoury aroma that mellows during gentle boiling.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, slightly bitter note and crunchy texture to the chutney.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked mixture through a sieve. Pushing the soft fruit through a sieve removes skins and seeds and creates a smooth base; skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse, uneven texture.

Swap the apple

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

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

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