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Tomato Chutney

A sweet and tangy tomato chutney made with tomatoes, currants, garlic, ginger, sugar, vinegar, and chili peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes, currants, garlic, and chili peppers.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Add vinegar and bring to a boil for a few minutes.

Finish

  1. Cool the mixture and then bottle it for use.

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. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 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

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the chutney and provide its body and fresh acidity.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the chutney along with the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and helps preserve the chutney.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during cooking.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as the chutney cooks.

The step that matters

Boiling with the vinegar. Boiling only a few minutes may not fully soften and blend the chopped ingredients or reduce the liquid. Watch the texture, since under-cooking leaves the chutney watery and less stable for storage.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, garlic, sugar, ginger, pepper, 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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