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 recipe I used was adapted from the one at the thefoody.com, as recommended on the grow your own forums.

See here for the rhubarb chutney recipe in more detail.

Recipe Costs

£9.34 1.5kg rhubarb (equivalent cost, mine was free)
£2.06 1500g dark brown soft sugar
£1.15 900ml vinegar (malt)
£0.55 425g sultanas
£0.36 75g chopped dried apricots
£0.40 40g root ginger
£ 0.01 30g salt
£0.30 30g garlic
£0.10 1 chilli
£0.01 2 tsp peppercorns
£0.90 3 lemons, peel only
£15.18 Total (£5.84 without buying the rhubarb)
£5.06 per kg of jam (£1.94 without buying the rhubarb - 30% of the cost of equivalent at ocado)

I made half as much again as the original recipe, mainly because I enthusiastically picked too much rhubarb. I find adapting a recipe like this isn't a problem with chutney, I'd be a bit careful doing the same with jam as it can be tricky to get large quantities up to temperature quick enough. The rhubarb was chopped into quite fine slices, about 1cm, as I didn't want the end result to be too stringy. Not a problem when you have a nice sharp knife.
Substituting some of the sultanas for apricots was inspired by seeing several recipes containing apricots or dates, I imagine they complement the rhubarb well and add more variety than the standard sultanas. We've been mixing our own muesli lately so have a good stock of dried fruit in the cupboard.

A nice large amount of garlic went in to the pot, it was getting on for two heads, leaving us with only one head of homegrown left. The lemon peel was taken off some lemons from the freezer, I'd picked these up in the out-of-date section at the supermarket a few weeks ago. Not having any cayenne pepper I chucked in a finely chopped chilli, I'm sure given the volume being made it would be fine to add a few more if you liked it hot.

The ginger, lemon and peppercorns went in the muslin with the garlic, chilli and salt joining the fruit, sugar and vinegar in the Preserving Pan. I'd got the large pan off the top shelf in the kitchen where it had been collecting sticky dust, as I figure it's best to use stainless steel when making chutney, especially with something as acidic as rhubarb. The non stick ones would probably not have suffered too much but I don't really like the thought of Rhubarb and Teflon Chutney.

After several hours of simmering the chutney looked thick enough to pot, it's fine to have a small amount of liquid in the top of the jars as this is absorbed during the 3 months of maturing time. The chutney looked very rich and dark as it went into the jars, I shall look forward to tasting it in August, preferably outside with a nice lump of cheese.

Recipe Timings

0.5hrs preparation
2 hrs simmering
0.5 hr potting

Taste Test

This is a good fruity chutney, great in an everyday cheese sandwich. It doesn't taste overly of rhubarb, and is given extra depth by the addition of the apricots.