When making chutney it is often difficult to tell when it is thick enough to start potting in steralised jars.

A good guide is to draw a wooden spoon across the bottom of the preserving pan, if the line created doesn't fill up with surplus vinegar then the chutney is ready to pot.

If, after potting, a small amount of vinegar appears in the top of the jars then this is fine, it will be absorbed into the chutney during the maturing process.

The above photo, taken while making green tomato chutney, shows the ideal consistency.

With the late summer fruits starting to ripen on the trees (and fall off in the wind), this recipe is great for using up a glut of apples and plums. I actually used the last of last years frozen stewed plums from the freezer, and some windfall apples. The relative quantities of plums and apples can be easily altered within reason.

Click here for the Plum and Apple Chutney recipe in more detail.

Recipe Costs

£1.35 900g plums (PYO cost)
£0.80 600g cooking apples
£0.33 450g onions
£0.50 50g fresh root ginger
£0.14 50g raisins
£0.15 1 tbsp mustard powder
£0.08 2 tsp ground coriander
£0.05 3 cloves garlic
£0.43 275g demerara sugar
£0.45 600ml vinegar

£4.28 Total (£2.13 without buying the plums and apples)
£1.90 per kg of relish (£0.95 without buying the rhubarb, one seventh of the cost of similar at tesco.com)

I thawed out my frozen plums first, although this was probably not necessary, this recipe is great in that all the ingredient are chucked in a preserving pan and brought to the boil.

Apples are peeled, cored and chopped up, size is not crucial as they will be reduced to a pulp during the cooking process.

Onions are peeled and finely chopped, they will remain reasonable firm in the finished chutney so its important not to leave them to chunky.

This recipe uses ground coriander, which I like to make freshly from coriander seeds, my stone pestle and morter make short work of grinding these up. Mustard powder, garlic and ginger adds extra taste to the chutney. The ginger can be grated, or chopped finely as I've done here, a tablespoon of mustard powder is added using my ever useful measuring spoons.

Demerara sugar adds sweetness to the fruit, you may want to increase the amount by 75g if you use more plums, or you can make a sharper tasting chutney by reducing the amount to 200g.

I used some home made spiced pickling vinegar to add depth to the taste, you can buy this commercially or just use malt vinegar.

All the ingredients are added to the preserving pan and brought to the boil.

The chutney is then simmered until it is thick, a good guide to judging the correct consistency of chutney can be found in this blog post about green tomato chutney.

This batch of chutney took several hours to reach the correct thickness when it was then potted in steralised jars. I'll leave it to mature for a few months before eating, it should last for over a year in a cool dark place.

Recipe Timings

30 minutes Preparation
120 minutes cooking
20 minutes potting

The gooseberries are swelling nicely and early varieties are already in the shops. The fresh fruit is not to everyone's taste, but is delicious when used in jam or chutney. Why not try some of these recipies:

 

Gooseberry and Lemon Verbena Cordial
A thirst quenching way of using up a glut of gooseberries.

Gooseberry Chutney
A basic gooseberry chutney.

Green Gooseberry Jam
Quite simply the best thing to do with gooseberries.
An excellent jam for breakfast, tangy yet sweet, a lovely orange colour, can be flavoured with the addition of elderflowers.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cordial
A combination of early summer flavours in a cordial. Uses elderflower cordial.

 

 

Now is the time of year when rhubarb is readily available. Why not get the preserving pan out, celebrate this most English of vegetables, and try some of the following recipes:

 

Elderflower and Rhubarb Jam
A combination of the best two early summer flavours.

Rhubarb and Ginger Schnapps
A delicious summer drink, spiced up with a hint of ginger.

Rhubarb Schnapps
A special drink ready in time for the summer, great served with fizzy wine.

Rhubarb and Ginger Jam
A subtle tasting jam with crystallised ginger.

Rhubarb Chutney
Recipe for a rich dark chutney with apricots.

 

Rhubarb Relish
Make with maincrop rhubarb, good with curries, oily fish and cheese.

 

As the pickle and preserve website has been going for over a year now I thought it would be interesting to see what the most popular recipes have been amongst visitors.

So here goes the top five in ascending order:

At number 5, and very apt for this time of year is Rhubarb Chutney.

At number 4, well worth making yourself,  Pickled Onions.

At number 3, lovely on toast, Rhubarb and Ginger Jam.

At number 2, a modern classic, Red Onion Marmalade.

And the surprise entry at number 1, the perfect accompaniment to the nations favorite dish, Lime Pickle.

With 7500 views between them that's an awful lot of jars of preserve.....

image source kilmerhouse.com

A good chutney should have spent time slowly simmering until all the ingredients are well cooked and the mixture is smooth. It's important not to simmer it too fast and to stir it regularly so avoid it sticking on the bottom of the preserving pan. This will allow the sugar to darken and the flavours combine.
A useful tip for judging when the chutney has reduced to a thickness suitable for potting is to draw a wooden spoon across the base of the preserving pan. If liquid quickly fills the gap then the chutney could do with some more simmering.
The Green Tomato Chutney in the above photo has reached the correct consistency and is ready for potting.
Always remember to let chutney mature for several months to allow the combination of flavours to develop.

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.

I've been inspired to make a Chutney for next Christmas, having been given several jars of 'Christmas Chutney' this year. While in some respects obviously a marketing ploy, it got me thinking about what sort of chutney would have the required festive feel.

Delia has a Christmas Chutney which includes lots of dried fruit and  Mary Berry has one made from peppers and aubergines. The general idea seems to concoct something a bit richer than usual, maybe containing fruit associated with Christmas, which also goes well with cold meat and cheese (most chutneys do...)

I realise I'm coming at this from the wrong end of the year, so may save up some ideas for use in the late summer, maybe plum and apple chutney.

I finally went for a Apple and Cranberry chutney from the BBC good food website, mainly because there was a bag of cranberries lurking in the bottom of the vegetable drawer.

I reckon it's a good time of year to use make this chutney, using up cheap cranberries or Christmas leftovers along with apples still stored from the Autumn. This lightly coloured fruity chutney would make a good Christmas chutney for next year, if you could wait that long.

See here for the Apple and Cranberry Chutney recipe.

Recipe Costs

£1.34 1kg cooking  apples
£0.74 500g eating apples (coxes)
£0.33 450g onions
£0.50 50g fresh root ginger
£0.04 1 tsp peppercorns
£0.37 500g granulated sugar
£0.35 250ml cider vinegar
£4.94 500g cranberries
£8.61 Total

about £4.30 per kg of chutney (about a quarter the cost of buying similar from the Hawkshead Relish Company or 65% of the cost of similar at tesco )

Starting with finely chopped onions, with life made easier using a sharp knife.

The mixture of cooking and eating apples is not one I've come across before, I guess it should give a variety of textures in the finished chutney. The coarsely chopped Bramley Apples will break down quickly when cooking...

... while the finely chopped coxes should retain some of their bite.

The only spices in this recipe are chopped fresh ginger and whole black peppercorns, it'll be interesting to see if the finished chutney could of done with more. (perhaps a few cloves or cinnamon)

All the ingredients apart from the cranberries are cooked up together and simmered for about 50 minutes. The organic cider vinegar will add to the apple flavour, I'm sure white wine vinegar would work as well.

The cranberries are added towards the end of the cooking, to ensure they don't turn to mush. I have to admit to not knowing much about cranberries and was intrigued by the slogan 'straight from the bog' on the packet. You can find out a bit more about them, along with some photos of how they are harvested from the flooded bogs at the pineypower.com website.

After a further 10 minutes simmering the cranberries were still whole, the apples had broken down and the chutney was a good consistency.

The finished chutney is a very light colour, which makes an interesting change from the usual dark brown offerings.

Recipe Timings

25 mins chopping
55 mins simmering
15 mins potting

Taste Test

This will have to wait a few months.

 

Green Tomato Chutney is one of those things that you almost hope you don't have to make (apart from that it's delicious). It would be so much nicer to eat all the tomatoes in the red and juicy state that they should be, however the recent wet summers mean that there are often green tomatoes left at the end of the season. This is an ideal way to use them up.
I've never seen green tomatoes for sale anywhere, although I wouldn't be surprised if you could get them at some larger farmers markets. The ones I used were the last stragglers from the greenhouse, there were a few orange and red ones in there as well.

Nigel Slater has written a nice article about green tomatoes, which includes another recipe.

This recipe is taken from the "Good Housekeeping" Cookery Book, granny recommended it as the best, and she should know.

See here for the Green Tomato Chutney Recipe in more detail.

Recipe Costs

£0.40 300g cooking apples
£0.16 1 large onion
£0.00 900g  green tomatoes
£0.16 125g sultanas
£0.02 1 1/2 tsp salt
£0.20 125g demerara sugar
£0.35 270ml malt vinegar
£0.05 1 tsp mustard powder
£0.01 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
£0.50 50g fresh ginger
£1.85 Total
£2.05 per kg of chutney  (an eighth of the cost of Rick Stein's Green Tomato Chutney)

The tomatoes are thinly sliced and put in the preserving pan.

Chopped apples, onions, sultanas, sugar and dry spices went in next, I used mustard seeds as I had run out of powder. I only roughly chop the apples, as they will be reduced to a pulp, the onions are chopped a bit finer.

I added 50g of fresh ginger in a muslin bag as well, nothing like a bit of improvisation when chutney making, although interestingly it was the most expensive ingredient and pushed the overall cost up quite a bit. I smash it about a bit with a rolling pin before putting it in the bag, this helps release more of the flavour.

I used the spicy pickling vinegar I'd recently made for pickling onions, this should add some extra depth to the finished chutney.

All the ingredients in the pan and ready to bring to the boil.

After 55 minutes of simmering the bottom of the pan stayed visible after drawing a spoon across it, a sure sign that the chutney has reached the correct consistency.
Remove the muslin bag at this stage.

The chutney was potted into steralised jars and should be ready in a few months.

Recipe Timings

30 mins chopping etc.
55 mins simmering
15 mins potting

If, like me, you've been wondering what to do with all that left over pumpkin, apart from make pie and soup, then this spicy winter chutney might be the answer. Our lantern was made early this year, in preparation for a weekend away, so the rest of the afternoon was spent putting the scrapings to good use.

I adapted the pumpkin chutney recipe on the lovely mytinyplot blog, increasing the amount of ginger and adding some apricots for extra fruitiness.

There are many other recipes for pumpkin preserves out there, mostly (unsurprisingly) from America, one UK site which has a selection of recipes and some pictures of amazing carved pumpkins is bumpkinpumpkins.co.uk
I really must spend some more time carving next year.

See here for the the pumpkin chutney recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.95 500g diced pumpkin
£0.20 150g apple peeled cored and chopped
£0.11 150g onion chopped
£0.30 3 tsp fresh ginger finely chopped
£0.20 1 tbsp mustard seeds
£0.48 100g dried apricots chopped
£0.01 pinch cayenne pepper
£0.11 200ml apple juice
£0.64 500ml vinegar
£0.19 200g sugar
£0.01 1 tbsp salt

£3.20 Total
£2.90 per kg of chutney (a third of the price of similar at ocado)

The larger pieces of pumpkin from the carving and scraping were diced, the rest of it I did have to make into pumpkin soup (best you've ever tasted), an opportunity not to be missed.

1 apple, 1 onion and the spices were added into the preserving pan along with the vinegar, I also added some apple juice at this point as I felt there wasn't quite enough liquid.

When looking for pumpkin recipes apricots seemed to crop up as an ingredient quite regularly, often added in the form of jam. I imagine this may be because of the similarity in colour, as well as the extra sweetness it gives. Not having any apricot jam to hand, I added 100g of chopped dried apricots, which should add some texture and sweetness to the chutney.

After 45 minutes of simmering, the chutney was starting to thicken and the pumpkin was well cooked, so in went the salt and sugar.

A further 10 minutes of boiling, with frequent stirring, and I was starting to see a trail left in the bottom of the pan, indicating the chutney was the correct consistency, so it was potted into steralised jars.

Recipe Timings

30 mins preparation
45 minutes simmering
15 minutes boiling
15 minutes potting