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Chutney Sauce

A sweet and spicy chutney made with apples, tomatoes, raisins, onions, peppers, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chutney Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the apples, tomatoes, raisins, onion, and red pepper separately.

Cook

  1. Mix all chopped ingredients together with brown sugar, fine salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Boil the mixture for 2 hours.

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

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Tart apples
Adds tartness and body as they soften into the chutney.
Ripe tomatoes
Contribute moisture and acidity, helping the mixture break down into a sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Stoned raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Mustard
Provides a sharp, pungent flavor that stands up to the sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture for 2 hours. Long cooking reduces the liquid and softens the fruit into a thick sauce. Sugars can scorch on the bottom of the pan if the heat is too high, so keep it at a gentle boil and stir regularly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, tomato, sugar, onion, pepper, mustard, 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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