Some time ago when in Manchester I was tempted into buying a large box of fresh mangoes. I paid  just £3 for a beautifully packaged box of seven small ripe mangoes, complete with tissue paper wrapping and tinsel decoration. When I got home I froze them planning to make mango chutney.

Mango chutney is not something I've tried to make before, although we consume enough of it as we tend to have a curry night every few weeks.
There's a good selection of recipes on the internet, including a sweet version with raisins on bestrecipes.com.au, and one with lots of chillies at top-indian-recipes.com. One problem I ran into, which also happened when looking for lime pickle recipes, was that the Indian use of the word chutney tends to refer to preparations of fresh ingredients rather than a method of preserving.

In the end I played safe and adapted a recipe from the WI Book of Preserves, which appealed as it contained a nice selection of spices.
After defrosting my mangoes I discovered that they'd probably been in the freezer a bit long, or else they were riper than I remembered  as they were looking a bit soft and juicy, as a result I missed out the part of the recipe which involved chopping the fruit into small chunks.

See here for the mango chutney recipe.

Recipe Costs

£3.00 1.8kg mangos (about 3 large ones)
£0.65 350g soft brown sugar
£0.03 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
£0.25 1 tsp coriander seeds
£0.03 1 tsp mustard seeds
£0.10 1 chilli
£0.02 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
£0.50 50g fresh ginger
£0.30 400ml malt vinegar
£0.15 4 cloves garlic
£0.16 1 onion
£5.19 Total
£2.88 per kg of chutney (73% of the cost of Sharwards mango chutney at tesco)

The first step was to remove the flesh from the mangoes and add sugar.

The whole spices are toasted in a dry pan and then...

... mixed with the turmeric and ground in a pestle and morter.

I did the same with the garlic and some rock salt, grinding it into a paste.

Finely chopped garlic and half a red chilli, I don't want this chutney to be too hot.

I used home made spiced pickling vinegar which will hopefully add some extra depth to the chutney.

All the ingredients are put in the preserving pan along with the finely chopped onion.

Slightly under 3 hours later the chutney was thick enough to pot up, the colour and consistency look good and the first sneaky taste suggests I was right to hold back a bit on the chilli.

Recipe Timings

30 mins preparation
3 hrs cooking
15 mins potting

Taste Test

This will have to wait a few weeks.

Preserved lemons are a common ingredient in North African, and  especially Moroccan, cuisine. You can actually use them in many dishes - anywhere that would benefit from a bit of citrus flavour.  I've put together some ideas in this blog post about what to do with preserved lemons.

They're very easy to make and it costs very little to make a large jar full, especially in January and February when the new crop of imported lemons enters the UK. 

See here for the preserved lemons recipe.

Recipe Costs

£2 8 lemons (unwaxed)
£1.87 10 tbsp sea salt
£3.87 Total

about £3 per kg of preserved lemons (less than a tenth of the cost of buying them from Rick Stein's website)

After giving the lemons a good scrub in hot water the stalk ends are removed with a sharp knife.

Carefully chop the lemon into quarters taking care not to slice right through (it doesn't matter if you do, they just won't look as pretty)

Squeeze as much of the juice out as possible, this can be made a bit easier by popping the lemons in the microwave for 10 seconds beforehand. I find using my thumb to push done each quarter was the most efficient way.

My eight lemons produced about 500ml of lemon juice, which was just enough to cover them later.

Rub about a tablespoon of course sea salt into each lemon, make sure it gets well into each quarter. Pack the fruit into a steralised jar as you go, squashing each one down as you push it in, this helps to release more juice.

My 8 lemons filled about 2 litres of preserving jar. Spices can be added at this stage, try a cinnamon stick, peppercorns, coriander seeds, a chilli or a bay leaf.

When the jars are packed full, top them up with the lemon juice, making sure there ar no air gaps. If you don't have enough juice then use some bottled lemon juice or little bit of water.
The jars need to be kept for at least a month to allow the salt to draw out the lemon juice. Once opened it's best to keep the jar in the fridge.

Recipe Timings

45 mins preparation

Taste Test

This will have to wait a few weeks.

I used up some of my bargain car boot sale limes on making lime chutney, but have been searching for a spicier Indian style lime pickle recipe. The problem I've been coming up with is that most of the recipes involve leaving the pickle in full sunlight for several days, fine if you live on the Indian sub-continent, but a bit more difficult during your typical English summer.

In the end I had to go with one just to try it out, this is an interesting recipe as far a pickling goes in that it doesn't contain vinegar or oil, the preserving is presumably done with a combination of the acidic lime juice, salt and sugar. I'm still looking for a recipe for an oil based lime pickle as I still have a few limes left (now safely stored in the freezer)

See here for the lime pickle recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.32 1kg (about 16) limes (or £2.56 if buying from tesco)
£ 0.04 100g salt
£0.47 500g sugar
£0.26 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds (ground)
£0.12 2 teaspoons cumin seeds (ground)
£0.10 Half a teaspoon cloves (ground)
£0.03 Chilli powder as per taste required
£0.75 75 g of grated ginger root
£0.03 1 teaspoon Fenugreek (methi seeds)
£0.03 1 teaspoon Mustard seeds
£2.15 Total (or £4.39 if buying limes from tesco)
£4.09 per kg of chutney - about the same as the equivalent at  tesco (£8.28 with buying full price limes - nearly twice the cost of equivalent at tesco)

Salting the limes brought out a fair amount of juice.

The remaining juice is then squeezed out.

Seeds ready for grinding in my favorite pestle and morter, I didn't grind these to a powder as I don't mind a bit of texture in the chutney.

All the ingredients are mixed together and boiled for a minute, the limes are still quite hard when packed into the steralised jars, or in this case jar, as it was reasonably large. There was a lot of surplus liquid once the jar had been topped up.

 Amazing that 16 limes can be packed into one jar, this was then left on a sunny window sill for a couple of weeks, hopefully this will replicate the Indian sun. 

Recipe Timings

30 mins preparation
10 mins simmering
5 mins potting

Taste Test

I left these for around 10 months before opening, and the first thing I noticed was that they were dryer than shop bought pickles. When making these again I will probably not pack the fruit in so tight so as to allow a it more room for some of the surplus liquid.
The texture however is spot on, just firm enough to provide some bite, without being overly chewy. The sour lime flavour comes through very well, more so than the spices. Next time I'll try increasing the quantities of the spices, especially the chilli powder as I prefer my lime pickle to have a little more of a kick.

We've been eating a lot of carrots recently. Partly through trying, as much as possible, to eat seasonal vegetables. At this time of year this results in a lot of coleslaw, which isn't a bad thing especially with the addition of fresh chives from the garden.

It set me thinking that there must be a way of using carrots in a chutney, after some searching it seemed that a lot of people were trying to replicate the classic M&S Wensleydale and caramelised carrot chutney sandwich. It's a few years since I had one of these, but I do remember them as being particularly good, Wensleydale goes very well with a sweet chutney.
There was a good looking Indian recipe at indianfoodforever.com which I'll have to try another time. I decided to have a go at this recipe for Carrot and Almond Chutney from the Chutney Recipes Blog, as I was intrigued by it's description as angel hair jam.

A selection of good big carrots were bought from the local veg shop, peeled, and then grated. I'd thought this would take ages and had considered using the food processor, but in the end it only took about 10 minutes by hand. I'd had to adapt the recipe somewhat, mostly because I hadn't planned to well in advance and didn't have enough honey or fresh ginger.

See here for the carrot and almond chutney recipe.

Recipe Costs

£1.70 1.5kg carrots (some weight is lost in peeling)
£0.21 125ml white wine vinegar
£0.60 2 lemons
£0.05 1 tblsp honey
£0.10 3 tblsp sugar
£0.05 1 tblsp salt
£0.05 2 tblsp coriander seeds ( I bought a bulk pack)
£0.80 85g fresh ginger
£0.20 2 large red chillies
£0.80 3 tblsp flaked almonds
£4.56 Total
£3.80 per kg chutney

Grinding the coriander gave me the chance top use my favorite stone pestle and mortar, something I searched for ages until finding. It has just the right combination of heavy mortar and rough pestle.

The mixture was all stirred up and left overnight, it wasn't quite as moist as I would have expected, which made it quicker to thicken up when the boiling stage was reached.

At this point I realised that maybe if I'd grated the carrot finer it would better resemble 'Angel Hair'. Still it's a great colour, and smelt very gingery.

The chillies and almonds were added just before putting into jars, I had to force it into the jars a bit, as the carrots retained quite a bit of their structure, and I didn't want to leave to many air gaps. Maybe I boiled it for a bit to long, or it could have done with some more liquid.

Recipe Timings

30 mins First Preparation
12 hours sitting
10 mins Second Preparation
40 mins cooking
30 mins Potting

Taste test

I had thought the coriander would be the dominant taste, as 2 tablespoons seemed a lot to be adding, however the ginger is prominent, with a following up of chilli. The carrots retain a lot of bite, as do the almonds, so the texture is a slightly crunchy one. The colour is great, and certainly looks good in a sandwich.