Name: Plain Dinner Chutney
Ingredients: 1 green mango, peeled and chopped; 1 onion, finely chopped; 2-3 green chillies, finely chopped; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; Vinegar (optional)

Why it works: Mango and onion work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 682 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Plain Dinner Chutney

Ingredients

1 green mango, peeled and chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2-3 green chillies, finely chopped
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
Vinegar (optional)

Directions

Peel the green mango and chop it into small pieces.
Add the chopped onion and green chillies.
Mix in the coarse sea salt and combine everything well.
Optionally, add vinegar to taste.

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.

Mango + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together682 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Mango + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together256 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

Green mango: Provides the tart, sour base that gives the chutney its main flavour.
Onion: Adds savoury sharpness and body to the chutney.
Green chillies: Add heat and a sharp, fresh bite.