Skip to main content
Dessert

Chutney

A preserved fruit chutney made with shallots, chillies, gooseberries, raisins, sugar, vinegar, salt, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and ginger work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 565 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the shallots, raisins, and chillies very fine.

Make and steep the chutney

  1. Boil the vinegar, salt, sugar, and gooseberries together.

  2. Pour the boiling mixture over the chopped ingredients.

  3. Mix well and let it sit for ten days before using.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the main fruit body and tartness that the chutney is built around.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the chutney and sharpens its flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and fruit with sweetness.
Shallots
Contribute savoury, pungent flavour and body to the chopped mixture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and soft texture as they soak in the liquid.

The step that matters

Chopping the shallots, raisins, and chillies very fine. Fine pieces release flavour and soften evenly during the ten-day steep, so no large chunks stay raw or overpowering. Uneven cuts leave some pieces harsh and others mushy.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, sugar, ginger, 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.

More chutney recipes

Apple 37Tomato 35Sauce 32Mango 18Indian 17Bengal 11 See all 6 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesSoft Ginger CakeSoft Ginger Cake56 recipes