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Tamarind Chutney

A spicy and sweet chutney made from tamarind, mustard seeds, chillies, and optional onion or garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tamarind and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tamarind Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tamarind

  1. Clean the outer skin of the tamarind and remove the seeds.

  2. Pound the tamarind with salt in a mortar or rub it on a stone.

Make the chutney

  1. Add mustard seeds and fried red chillies, then mix well.

  2. Optionally, add a small onion or garlic.

  3. Mix sugar and salt, then pound them together.

  4. Use 1 ounce of this mixture for every pound of fruit.

  5. If the mixture is liquid, dry it over the fire.

Store

  1. Store the chutney in pots and cover tightly.

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. Tamarind + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Tamarind + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together426 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Tamarind + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tamarind fruits
Provides the sour acidity that defines the chutney's flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the tamarind with sweetness.
Mustard seeds
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma when mixed into the chutney.
Red chillies
Add heat and pungency to the chutney.

The step that matters

Drying the mixture over the fire. If the mixture is still liquid, it will not keep well in storage. Drying it over heat reduces its water content, which helps the chutney thicken and last longer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tamarind, mustard, ghee, sugar):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tamarind, mustard, ghee, sugar. 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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