Name: Chutney, No. 1
Ingredients: ½ pound raisins, stoned and halved; 2 onions, chopped; 1 garlic clove, minced; 1 shallot, minced; 20 chilies, pounded; ½ pound mustard; ¼ pound ginger, grated; ¼ pound coarse sea salt

Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chutney, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the raisins, onions, garlic, shallot, and pounded chilies.
Add the mustard, grated ginger, and coarse sea salt, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.
Store in a jar and let it sit for a few days to develop flavors.

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.

Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins: Provide sweetness and a chewy, jammy body as the chutney matures.
Onions: Add bulk and savory sweetness that softens and blends with the other ingredients.
Mustard: Adds sharp, pungent heat that mellows during resting.
Chilies: Supply pungent heat and sharp flavor.
Ginger: Adds warm, aromatic spice.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, garlic, clove, shallot, mustard, ginger):

Limefits better
Avocadofits better
Lemonfits better
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, garlic, clove, shallot, mustard, ginger. 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.