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Oct 09
2010
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This is a great recipe for using up a glut of damsons and green tomatoes, both of which I find can take you by surprise at this time of year.
I had for years wondered why we always produced masses of green tomatoes, usually blaming myself for not planting them out early enough, or the weather for not being sunny enough. While I'm sure these factors come in to play, I recently found out that a lot of people locally have the same tomato blight problem as we do, and while chatting about it had found out that a local market gardener has given up growing tomatoes outdoors. He had come to the conclusion that an increase in the amount of fields of potatoes in our area had caused such an increase in blight that it wasn't worth bothering.
I'd be tempted to not bother myself next year if it wasn't for recipes like this one, and the classic green tomato chutney.
They're a staple in our store cupboard and one we wouldn't go without.
See here for the damson and green tomato chutney recipe in more detail.
Recipe Costs
£0.00 1.5kg damsons
£0 00 1.5kg green tomatoes
£0.37 500g onions
£2.00 500g sultanas / raisins / currents
£0.94 500g light brown sugar
£1.40 750ml white wine or cider vinegar made up to 1l with water
£0.06 1 - 3tsp dried chilli flakes (more can be added if you like)
£0.01 1tsp salt
For the spice bag
£0.02 12 cloves
£0.02 12 black peppercorns
£0.20 1 tsp corriander seeds
£0.05 a few blades of mace
£0.50 50g fresh ginger
£5.63 Total
£1.87 per kg of chutney (10% the price of buying it.)
The green tomatoes are roughly chopped and put in a large preserving pan, you want to get them quite small so that the skin isn't a problem in the finished chutney.
The damsons have the stones removed and are then also added to the pan.
Removing the stones before hand is much easier than picking them out of hot chutney, see the blog post for more details.
The last of our homegrown onions are finely chopped and added in...
... along with a couple of hundred grams of chopped courgette that needed using up. It's not in the recipe and the chutney won't suffer if they're left out, but we've got masses of them and it'll add another texture to the finished preserve.
I used a mixture of dried fruit including sultanas, raisins and chopped dates.
I added a couple of teaspoons of chilli flakes, I haven't yet made a spicy chutney this year so don't mind if this one turns out hot, keep to one teaspoon if you're concerned.
The dried spices and fresh ginger are put in a square of muslin, and are removed before potting. The ginger is roughly chopped and then crushed with a rolling pin so that the flavour can come out.
I tie up the muslin square into a bag, but you can get handy muslin bags which can make life easier.
Cider vinegar is finely added to the preserving pan, and the whole lot brought to the boil and simmered for several hours until ready to pot.
The chutney will be ready in a few months, and should easily last for a year if stored in a cool dark place. It'll be great with cold meat, cheese or in a sandwich.
Recipe Timings
1 hour Preparation
4 hours Cooking
15 minutes Bottling
