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Tomato Chutney

A spicy tomato chutney with onions, apples, and vinegar, simmered with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the tomatoes and onions, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, and let stand for 12 hours. Drain.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, Lyle's Golden Syrup, mustard, and spices. Bring to a boil.

  2. Pass the tomatoes, onions, apples, and sultanas through a mincing machine and add to the boiling mixture.

  3. Boil for 30 to 60 minutes until soft. For a darker color, add a little gravy coloring or burnt sugar.

Jar

  1. Pour into jars and seal with greaseproof paper to ensure they are airtight.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 of the chutney and break down into a soft, thick texture when simmered.
Onions
Add body and savoury sweetness as they soften during the long simmer.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the chutney.
Lyle's golden syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the chutney become glossy and darker as it cooks.
Sultanas
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy bits that soften into the chutney.

The step that matters

Boiling until soft. Cooking long enough softens the tomatoes and onions and lets the vinegar and sugars thicken the mixture. Stopping early leaves it watery and sharp, so check texture before jarring.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, vinegar, pepper, mustard, allspice, clove):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, vinegar, pepper, mustard, allspice, clove. 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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