Skip to main content
Main

Chutney

A preserved chutney of apples, onions, garlic, mustard seed, sugar, salt, ginger, and raisins in cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chutney

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chutney

  1. Cook the apples, onions, and garlic in the vinegar until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Steep the mustard seed in vinegar, then add it to the apple mixture.

  4. Stir in the brown sugar, coarse sea salt, ginger, and chopped raisins.

  5. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and blended.

Bottle and seal

  1. When cold, transfer to wide-mouthed bottles and seal.

  2. Pour a little olive oil over the top to prevent air exposure.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Cider + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the chutney its tang and helps preserve it.
Sour apples
Supply pectin and tartness, giving body and a sharp flavour to the chutney.
Onions
Add savoury depth and bulk, softening into the mixture as it cooks.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter bite and a noticeable texture when steeped in vinegar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that balances the sharp vinegar and apples.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Cooked apples and onions must be fully softened before sieving, or the purée stays lumpy and uneven. Pushing through a sieve removes fibrous pieces and skins, giving a smooth, blended texture.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, onion, clove, garlic, mustard, sugar):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, onion, clove, garlic, mustard, sugar. 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

Apple SoupApple Soup33 recipesHam in CiderHam in Cider10 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes