We're occasional Sunday morning visitors to a local car boot sale, we can't go that often because we end up buying too much stuff.
One of the stalls which is worth visiting sells vast quantities of cheap fruit and veg, there's never much choice and it has to be eaten quickly, but it's a good place to pick up a bargain. This weeks haul was 15 bananas for a pound and a crate of limes for £1.50 (45 - I counted them).

This lime chutney was an obvious choice, although I think we probably eat more of the Indian style lime pickle (oil based) than this vinegar based preserve, this will add an extra dimension to cheese and pickle sandwiches of the future.

The recipe I used was adapted from the one at grouprecipes.com.

  See here for the lime chutney recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.12 6 limes (or £0.96 if buying from tesco)
£ 0.01 1 tablespoon salt
£0.09 1 medium onion finely chopped
£0.47 300ml cider vinegar
£0.02 1 tsp ground ginger
£0.14 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
£0.06 2 tsp black mustard seeds
£0.06 2 tsp white mustard seeds
£0.97 Total (or £1.81 if buying limes from tesco)
£1.49 per kg of chutney - 19% the equivilant cost at tesco (£2.78 per kg with buying full price limes - 34% of the cost of equivalent at tesco)
Interesting that it is still cheaper to make you own even if buying limes at full price.

The lime were sliced and salted, then left overnight, during which time they changed colour.

Added mustard seeds using measuring spoons , both for flavour and appearance.

The recipe called for mixed spice, so I used some recently purchased garam marsala which contains coriander, cumin, black pepper, cardamon cinnamon, ginger, bay leaves and cloves. These were crushed up in the heavy morter and pestle and added to the limes, salt and sugar.

I only had to simmer this for around 20 minutes until it was thick enough, the limes were still a bit crunchy but should soften over time in the jars.

The finished chutney smelt very strongly of limes, as it doesn't contain any sugar I shall be interested to see how sour it is in a few months time.

Recipe Timings

30 mins preparation
20 mins simmering
5 mins potting