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Lime Chutney

A preserved lime and spice condiment made with limes, raisins, sugar, chillies, ginger, garlic, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lime Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the limes

  1. Cut the limes into quarters and soak in salt for 3-4 days in the sun, stirring constantly.

  2. Soak the raisins, chillies, ginger, and garlic in a little vinegar for 24 hours.

Make and bottle the chutney

  1. Grind the soaked ingredients together with the limes using a mortar and pestle.

  2. Mix well, adding enough vinegar to thin the mixture.

  3. Heat the mixture to thicken it, then bottle it.

  4. Let it sit for 7-8 weeks 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lime + gingertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,621 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  4. Lime + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lime + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,411 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Limes
Provide the main sour flavour and the bulk of the chutney, softened by salt curing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sourness of the limes and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and thins the mixture, helping preserve it.
Raisins
Add sweetness and soft texture as they soak and break down.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the limes and helps preserve them during curing.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture to thicken it. Heating drives off water and softens the solids so the chutney sets to a spoonable consistency. Heating too little leaves it thin and more prone to spoiling in the bottle.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lime, sugar, ginger, clove, garlic, vinegar):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lime, sugar, ginger, clove, garlic, 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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