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Tomato & Horseradish Chutney

A chutney made from green tomatoes, chillies, onions, sugar, horseradish, cloves, cinnamon, malt vinegar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 & Horseradish Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes, chillies, and onions.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let sit overnight.

  3. Drain off the water.

Cook

  1. Combine the tomatoes, chillies, onions, sugar, horseradish, cloves, and cinnamon in a saucepan.

  2. Cover with malt vinegar.

  3. Simmer gently for a whole day.

Bottle and mature

  1. Bottle and cork tightly.

  2. Let sit for three months 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Horseradish + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the chutney as they break down during simmering.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and body that thickens as they cook down.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and helps create a thick, preserved texture.
Malt vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the chutney and sharpens its flavour.
Green chillies
Add heat and fresh, sharp flavour to the chutney.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent, sharp heat that deepens as the chutney matures.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for a whole day. Too hard a boil can scorch the sugar and burn the chutney, while gentle heat lets the vegetables soften and the liquid reduce evenly into a thick, well-preserved mass.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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