Skip to main content
Sauce

Chutney Sauce

A sweet and tangy chutney made with apples, peppers, tomatoes, onions, raisins, vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chutney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the apples, green peppers, tomatoes, onions, and raisins finely.

Make the chutney

  1. Combine vinegar, white sugar, brown sugar, salt, mustard seed, and celery seed in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the chopped mixture to the boiling liquid.

  4. Let the mixture simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Add the chopped apples to the pot.

  6. Cook slowly until done.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green sour apples
Provide tartness and body, breaking down to thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that preserves the sauce and sharpens its flavour.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar and fruit.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness with a deeper, molasses-like flavour and helps the sauce thicken.
Onions
Add savoury depth and bulk, softening into the sauce during simmering.

The step that matters

Add the chopped apples to the pot. Apples added late can stay firm or turn to mush depending on timing and heat. Cooking slowly keeps the pieces tender while the sauce reduces and thickens.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, pepper, tomato, onion, vinegar, mustard, celery. 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

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes