Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Chutney

A preserved chutney made from sliced green tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, onions, chillies, cloves, and cinnamon, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Sprinkle salt over each layer of sliced tomatoes and let them drain for 24 hours.

Make the chutney

  1. In an enamelled preserving pan, combine the drained tomatoes and vinegar to cover them completely.

  2. Add the sugar, onions, chillies, cloves, and cinnamon stick.

  3. Stew the mixture gently in the uncovered pan until the tomatoes are tender, about 20-30 minutes.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the hot chutney into jars holding about 2 lbs each and seal immediately.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the chutney and break down to a thick, spreadable texture when stewed.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the chutney.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and helps thicken the chutney as it reduces.
Onions
Add savoury body and sweetness that softens during slow stewing.

The step that matters

Stew gently in an uncovered pan. Gentle heat in an open pan lets excess moisture evaporate so the chutney thickens. Boiling hard can scorch the sugar and break the tomatoes unevenly, while covering would trap steam and leave it watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes