This recipe was tempting to try as another way of preserving rhubarb.
There's nothing wrong with relilable rhubarb chutney, but you do have to wait several months before it's good to eat, the advantage with this recipe is that the sweet fruity relish can be enjoyed straight away.

As a variation you could add finely chopped chilli, or try the lime and ginger version on sweet mary's blog.

This recipe is taken from Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No.2 by Pam Corbin

See here for the rhubarb relish recipe in more detail.

Recipe Costs

£0.47 500g granulated sugar
£0.14 100 ml cider vinegar
£6.22 1kg rhubarb (equivalent cost, mine was free)
£0.35 125g raisins
£0.50 50g fresh root ginger
£0.34 2 cinnamon sticks
£0.02 6 cloves

£8.04 Total (£1.82 without buying the rhubarb)
£5.74 per kg of relish (£1.30 without buying the rhubarb)

The ginger is chopped into chunks and bruised with a rolling pin, then put with the other spices in a muslin bag.

The spice bag is put in a saucepan along with 100ml of water and 100ml of cider vinegar, I find it easiest to use a glass measuring jug.

500g of sugar is also put into the pan, this seems like quite a lot but does make the relish lovely and sweet.
The mixture is heated gently until the sugar has dissolved, then set aside for 20 minutes.

About a kilogram of rhubarb is washed and then chopped into 2 - 3 cm long pieces.

125g of raisins are used to give some variety to the relish, these could easily be left out if wished.

The spiced syrup, rhubarb and raisins are combined and cooked gently for about 45 minutes. At first the pan will seem very dry, but the rhubarb releases a lot of liquid as it cooks. I left the muslin bag in during the cooking to try and extract more of the flavour.

This is meant to be a runny preserve, suited to being poured from a wide necked bottle, so shouldn't be reduced too much when cooking.

Recipe Timings

10 minutes Preparation
20 minutes standing
45 minutes cooking
10 minutes bottling

Taste Test

Great in a strong cheese sandwich and should go well with cold cooked meats. This is most definitely a sweet relish, but has a pleasing acidity from the rhubarb.

Last spring's rhubarb schnapps was one of the great preserving successes of the year, so I have been keen to make some more from the moment the rhubarb in the garden started sprouting

As well as making a jar of the original version this year I have also tried a jar with added ginger. Ginger always works well with rhubarb, rhubarb and ginger jam also being a favorite, so this schnapps should be good with a extra bit of spice.

See here for the rhubarb and ginger schnapps recipe.

Recipe Costs

£6.22 1kg rhubarb (equivalent cost, mine was free)
£0.28 300g granulated sugar
£11.19 1l vodka
£0.50 50 g fresh ginger

£18.19 Total (£11.97 without buying the rhubarb)
£18.19 per litre of schnapps (£11.97 without buying the rhubarb - peach schnapps costs £14.27 at ocado)

I picked the rhubarb on one of the glorious sunny mornings we've been having recently, just the weather for getting inspired to make a drink that's best drunk when outdoors.

One kilogram of rhubarb stalks (a mixture of thick and thin) is chopped up and packed in to a steralised preserving jar.

Sliced fresh ginger is added amongst the layers (best to add it as you're packing the rhubarb in the jar).

300g of granulated sugar, this amount can be varied if you prefer a sweeter or sharper schnapps. You can taste the schnapps after six weeks or so and add more sugar if you wish.

I find a jam funnel helps to avoid spilling sugar everywhere, although obviously it's not a problem if you're working outside.

The jar is topped up with cheap vodka, sealed, and given a good shake, once a day for a few weeks until the sugar is dissolved and then every week until you feel like straining it. The jar should be kept in a cool dark place and the rhubarb should be strained out before drinking. Wait at least six weeks before sampling, but you can leave it for up to six months if you wish.

The liquid will turn a lovely pink colour and is great drunk neat, with sparkling wine or with fizzy water.

Recipe Timings

15 minutes Preparation
6 weeks Standing

Taste Test

This will have to wait a few weeks.

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.

While making vegetarian mincemeat I found myself short of some mixed spice, so set about making some more from spices I had in stock. 

According to wikipedia the following spices are commonly used in mixed spice:

Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Allspice
Mace
Cloves
Ginger
Coriander
Caraway
Cayenne Pepper

Depending on the desired taste any of the ingredients can be used in varying quantities, although its best to always include some of the first three.

The quantities I used were as follows:

1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice 1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp coriander seeds

I grated the nutmeg with my extremely efficient microplane nutmeg grater, and ground the other ingredients together using a nice solid morter and pestle.

The resulting spice should be sealed in an airtight jar and used up within a few months  if possible.

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

These pickled onions should provide a bit of warmth when they are ready in the new year, the spicy pickling vinegar is added to by tucking a few chillies in the jars.
I used up the remainder of a 5 kg bag of onions I recently bought for the bargain price of £3.75, much more cost effective than buying small bags from the supermarket.
The first half of the bag had gone in making sweet pickled onions.

This hot and spicy recipe used spicy pickling vinegar.

Recipe Costs

£1.87 2.5kg pickling onions
£0.19 500g salt
£0.75 1 litre malt vinegar
£0.10 1 tsp coriander seeds
£0.03 1 tsp mustard seeds
£0.20 4 tsp cumin seeds
£0.26 5 cardamons £0.19 5 cloves
£0.10 10 g fresh ginger
£0.03 1 tsp garam marsala (whole, not ground)
£0.24 4 fresh chillis
£3.86 Total
£1.54 per kg of onions (about quarter the cost of traditional pickled onions (not budget ones) from tesco)

This mix of spices would be great even without the extra chillies, I choose a good selection of seeds making sure there were about 15g - 30g to each litre of vinegar. These were then added to the vinegar and brought to the boil, then left to stand overnight. You could use a Spice Bag , but I just make sure I strain the vinegar carefully.

The onions are topped, tailed and peeled, then mixed with the salt and left to stand overnight as well.

The next day they are rinsed, and almost look good enough to eat already. The salt has removed a large amount of water which should make them nice and crunchy.

The onions are packed into steralised jars, I find if you push them down you can get them to fit nice and tight and the top layer tucks pleasingly under the shoulder of the jar.
I decided to put two half chillies in each jar, time will tell if this is being overly keen.

The end result looks good and will be left to mature for several months in a cool dark cupboard.

Recipe Timings

30 mins peeling and salting
10 mins preparing vinegar
overnight salting and cooling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

Very spicy, not for the faint hearted.
I would probally halve the amount of chillis inthe jar next time as I could only manage to eat these onions chopped up in a sandwich.

After the success (I hope) of making pickled onions last week, I've been keen to make some more, so hopefully we've got enough to last us the whole of next year. I picked up a 5kg sack of pickling onions from the local fruit and veg shop, along with 5 litres of malt vinegar, the plan being to try out some different mixes of spices and flavours.

This recipe makes  sweet pickled onion which may suit those who don't like too much of the sharp taste of vinegar.

It uses the recipe for sweet pickling vinegar, of which I made 2.5 litres, as I only used 1 litre I have scaled the costs and spices below down accordingly. You could get away with only making a litre and topping up some of the jars with malt vinegar (or any other sort - balsamic might be nice).

Recipe Costs

£1.87 2.5kg pickling onions
£0.19 500g salt
£0.17 180g granulated sugar
£0.75 1 litre malt vinegar
£0.04 1 blade of mace
£0.05 15 cloves
£0.05  15 allspice berries
£0.17 1 cinnamon stick
£0.11 2 heads star anise
£0.04 1 tsp peppercorns
£0.05 5 g fresh ginger
£3.49 Total
£1.39 per kg of onions (about quarter the cost of traditional pickled onions (not budget ones) from tesco)

Making pickled onions takes a bit of time, and needs to be done over a few days, that said each step is not that time consuming, I did this batch over two evening while cooking the tea. The first step is to make the spiced vinegar, which means selecting a bowl full of spices (around 15g - 30g per litre of vinegar).

You can put them in a Spice Bag or just make sure you strain the vinegar carefully afterward. Add the  spices and sugar to the vinegar and bring it slowly to the boil stirring to make sure the sugar is dissolved. Then turn off the heat, cover, and let it stand at least overnight for the flavours to develop. This fills the kitchen with a wonderful spicy smell, although it is a bit vinegary.

The second step is topping and tailing and then peeling the onions. This  is the most time consuming task although you can loosen the skins  by scalding the top and tailed onions in boiling water for 20 seconds then draining. Be careful not to leave them in the water too llong as they will start to soften.

The peeled onions are then put in a bowl and mixed with the salt, this draws out some of the water (by osmosis - diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane - remember that from school?) Leave these covered overnight, giving them a stir before going to bed, it's amazing how much water this produces, and it will help make the onions crunchy and preserve better.
No photos of osmosis action, but there are some in my last post about pickled onions.

The next day rinse the onions with very cold water, to get rid of the salt, and pack them in steralised jars.
Strain the vinegar, unless you want to leave some of the spices in for decoration, I couldn't resist popping a star anise in each jar. I figured it would help me remember which jars contained the sweet onions.

Pour over the cold vinegar, it's important to cover the top onions with at least a 1 cm of vinegar as some may evaporate during storage.

The pickles should be kept in a cool dark place for a few months to allow the flavours to mature.

Recipe Timings

30 mins peeling and salting
10 mins preparing vinegar
overnight salting and cooling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

These have a very strong flavour, which I can only think comes from leaving the star anise in the jar. I'll leave it out next time..

This was the first time I had tried preserving with it, the recipe with ginger was enticing, as I have made wonderful marrow and ginger jam before. The addition of crystallised ginger was a good excuse to have a go at making that as well. The recipe from the "Good Housekeeping" Cookery Book which was on the veg plotting blog, seemed to be the classic.

See here for the rhubarb and ginger jam recipe.

Recipe Costs

£6.85 1.1kg rhubarb (equivalent cost, mine was free)
£1.03 1.1kg sugar
£0.60 2 Lemons
£0.24 25g root ginger
£1.36 100g crystallised ginger
£10.08 Total (£3.23 without buying the rhubarb)
£5.04 per kg of jam (£1.62 without buying the rhubarb - 33% of the cost of equivalent at Tesco)

This jam was a dream to make, chopping rhubarb is particularly pleasurable, something to do with the noise it makes.

The recipe said to leave the rhubarb, lemon juice and sugar mix to stand overnight, so I did, but couldn't resist stirring a few times. I used the mixing bowl pictured above, it's important not to use a saucepan as rhubarb is quite acidic and can react with some metal pans. When returned to in the morning the sugar had drawn out a lot of liquid resulting in chunks of rhubarb floating in sugar syrup - half way to jam already.

All of the crystallised ginger was finely chopped and added directly into the jam, along with the fresh crushed ginger in a muslin. This seemed like a lot of ginger for the amount of jam, but the end result wasn't overpowering.
The boiling process was more frantic than some jams, the rhubarb broke down quickly, leaving it's characteristic strands. It might be an idea to chop the rhubarb into smaller chunks to start with, if you're not keen on stringy jam. Setting point was soon reached, no need for hours of simmering with this jam.



Recipe Timings

0.5hrs Preparation
overnight standing
0.25hrs chopping ginger
0.5hrs first boil
0.5hrs to reach setting point
0.5 hr Potting

Taste Test
I had though this could be overpowered by the ginger in it, but although it's obviously there, it's actually quite subtle until you bite into a small lump of crystallised ginger. The lumps of ginger have remained firm and crunchy, and although it would still be a tasty jam if they were left out, I think it's worth the effort of making and adding them.

image source wikimedia commons

1. Ginger used in cooking is the underground stem of the ginger plant(Zingiber officinale)javascript:void(0)

2. Ginger originated in Asia and is now also grown in India, Southeast Asia, West Africa and the Caribbean.

3. Ginger can be used fresh, either grated or thinly sliced, or the root powdered and dried to make ginger powder.

4. Substitute 6 parts fresh for 1 part ground if needed, although the tastes are not exactly the same.

5. Fresh ginger is often used in pickles and chutneys, and can be pickled itself to make the Japanese delicacy gari.

6. Fresh ginger can also be preserved by crystallising, then used in baking or jam making.

7. When buying ginger make sure the skin is smooth, if it's wrinkled or cracked it means the ginger is old. It should also be very firm to the touch.

8. Ginger has been found effective for treating nausea caused by seasickness, morning sickness and chemotherapy.

9. Fresh ginger can be kept for about three weeks in the fridge, wrapped in a towel in a plastic bag.

10. It can be frozen for up to three months, either whole or grated.

I had settled on making some Rhubarb and Ginger Jam with the rampant rhubarb from the garden, and had then been further inspired by the post on the veg plotting blog. As the recipe called for crystallised ginger it seemed sensible to have a go at making this myself first. I have a recipe for it in The Complete Book of Small-batch Preserving, although it being an American book it calls it candied ginger.

See here for the crystallised ginger recipe.

Recipe Costs

£1.22 130g fresh ginger
£0.14 145g sugar
£1.36 Total
£10.07 per kg crystallised ginger (very similar or more expensive to the costs in the shops)

The ginger was peeled and chopped, not a time consuming task, although I did only do a cup full. The thinly (about 2mm) sliced ginger was boiled several times, which did make the kitchen smell very nice.

While boiling for the final time I made up the sugar syrup, unlike the making of candied peel, the ginger was simmered in the syrup until it was all absorbed. This needed a bit of watching in the final ten minutes, but meant there was no sticky draining to do. I just tipped the pan straight into a bowl of sugar and rubbed until it was all coated.

The recipe suggested further drying in the oven, but as I was planning on using it straight away I didn't bother.

This was a very quick and easy recipe to do, and satisfying not to have to buy the product from the shops to use in the planned jam. You could almost prepare it as you needed it, if you had ginger in the fridge/freezer and needed crystallised ginger for a recipe. A bit disappointing that you can buy it cheaper then make it, but that was probably down to the cost of ginger. I did at least save on the petrol costs of making a special journey to get some.

Recipe Timings

0.25 hrs Preparation
1 hr Boiling, simmering in Sugar Syrup & dusting in sugar

Taste Test

This had a real kick to it, sweet at first and then fiery in the mouth. I imagine it'll make a rich tasting addition to jam or chutney, and could in small amounts be eaten as a very treaty snack.