Another apple chutney

Boring apple chutney photo

A couple of Saturdays ago I spent a delightful afternoon having lunch in the garden with friends.

Although a small child fell in the pond an unexpected bonus was that one of the guests brought me a box of apples from her garden.

Kathy, I doubt you'll ever make your own chutney, but if you do, here's your recipe.

Kathy's apples chutney ingredients

• 1kg apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
• 2 medium to large onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 500g sultanas
• 350g light muscovado sugar
• 500ml cider vinegar
• 1 star anise
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

How to make apple chutney

1. Put everything in a preserving pan, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. 
2. Continue to cook until thick, stirring occasionally with a long wooden spoon.
3. Turn off the heat and leave to cool down a little.
4. Pot into warm sterilized jars.
5. Label and date the jars.

Plum chutneys

Plums, before

Plums, after

Our plum tree is getting too big for us to be able to harvest all the fruit. We picked what we could reach, and there's still about 3/4 left. This year tried a couple of different things as well as the usual chutney.

Spicy plum chutney ingredients

• 1.5kg stoned weight plums
• 150 ml rice vinegar
• 350ml red wine vinegar
• 4 tablespoons nam pla
• 800g granulated sugar
• 200g muscovado sugar 
• 5 teaspoons crushed dried chilli flakes
• 1 large cinnamon stick
• 6 crushed garlic cloves
• 100g ginger, grated
• 2 teaspoons salt

How to make spicy plum chutney

1. Put everything in a very large pan - preferably a preserving pan
2. Bring to the boil then simmer for about 3 hours, till the chutney is thick
3. Turn off the heat and allow the chutney to cool slightly
4. Pot into sterilized jars while still warm

Not so spicy plum chutney ingredients

1kg plums, stoned weight
500g onions, roughly chopped
350g light brown sugar
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 teaspoons grated ginger
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons salt
pinch cayenne pepper
500ml cider vinegar

Cook as for spicy plum chutney above.

I also made 3x70cl plum gin, which will be ready for Christmas, a tangy plum sauce which I had in crispy duck pancakes, and some preserved plums, which I used in plum and chocolate brownies.

This year's apple chutney #1

Everything is happening a month early. The plums were harvested 3 weeks ago, and the apples are falling on the ground. It's not even half way through August.

Happily for me this means I can make lots of chutney, which will be perfect for Christmas presents.

This is a variation on apple #2 from last year, which I think was the tastiest of last year's chutneys - I suspect because of the cider vinegar. I used malt vinegar in this recipe because I didn't have cider vinegar and was too lazy to go to Sains for some. The other changes were also based on what was to hand. The apples came from Lisa's apple tree and are eaters, so the chutney will be on the sweet side. I ran out of apples but found one that had fallen from a tree lying on the ground round the corner.

Apple chutney ingredients

• 1.5 kg eating apples
• 250g cooking apples
• 400g raisins
• 150g dates
• 1kg soft dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon crushed died chillies
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 1 double thumb-sized piece root ginger, grated
• 1 teaspoon peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1 tablespoon allspice berries
• 2 teaspoons salt
• Juice 1/2 lemon

 How to make apple chutney

1. Put everything in a preserving pan, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. 
2. Continue to cook until thick - count on this taking between 2 and 4 hours
3. Turn off the heat and leave to cool down a little.
4. Pot into warm sterilized jars.
5. Label and date.

Since every jar of chutney looks pretty much the same as the next, I haven't bothered with a photo.

For my own reference, this was made on 16 August 2014.

Apple chutney x2

I have almost given up blogging, it's been so long since I posted anything. Yesterday, I almost gave up cooking, having experienced several culinary disasters:

1. Over-set chutney. Yes, let me just say that again: over-set chutney. How on earth did that happen? I have never, ever over-set chutney before in my life. And, according to Google, neither has anyone who has ever published anything on the web. But the apple, chilli and ginger batch I made on 1st October has over-set, bearing an striking reseblance to jam.

2. Over-set crab apple jelly. Crab apple jelly seems like more faff than its worth. Cleaning, boiling, straining then cooking. Never again. Jams are not for me. I am sticking to chutney from now on (which I will NOT over-set again).


3. Mutton curry without the mutton. I left the mutton in the fridge instead of the freezer for too long and had to throw it out (it went to the foxes, not the bin). But by this time I'd made the curry sauce, so I ended up with a sauce-only curry sauce

On a more positive note, here's a chutney recipe that does appear to have worked. The apples for this one were courtesy of Tanya's friend Diana. 

Apple chutney #2 ingredients

• 2kg peeled and cored apples, cut into smallish chunks
• 5 medium onions, roughly chopped
• 1 litre cider vinegar
• 500g sultanas
• 1kg soft brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 1 chilli, chopped finely
• 1 double thumb-sized piece root ginger, grated
• 1 teaspoon peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1 tablespoon allspice berries
• 2 teaspoons salt
• Juice 1/2 lemon

How to make apple chutney

1. Put everything in a preserving pan, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. 
2. Continue to cook until thick, but not too thick.
3. Turn off the heat and leave to cool down a little.
4. Pot into warm sterilized jars.
5. Label before you forget what it is.

Apple chutney #3 ingredients

• 2.5Kg apples
• 7 onions (just under 1kg)
• 800g raisins
• Approx 1.25 litres malt vinegar
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon hot paprika
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds 

Make the chutney as for Apple chutney #2 

Lime pickle

Limes, marinading

Lime pickle ingredients

 

I'm getting a little bored with chutney and so am branching out into pickles. To be honest, I'm not sure what constitutes a chutney versus a pickle and would probably call this lime pickle a relish, since it doesn't contain any sugar. It is a very tangy version of the stuff you get in jars to have with poppadoms, but equally as oily. It was delicious served as a dip for cocktail sausages. 

• 12 limes
• 2 medium-hot green chillies
• 1 heaped tablespoon grated ginger
• 2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
• salt
• 500 ml white wine vinegar
• 250 ml sunflower oil
• 3 lemongrass stalks
• 6 garlic cloves
• 2 teaspoons chilli powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes + seeds

 How to make lime pickle

1. Slice the limes thickly into a large bowl.
2. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons coarse salt.
3. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave overnight.
4. The next day rinse the limes under cold water and drain. 
5. Chop the chili, garlic, ginger and lemongrass finely.
6. Heat the oil in a in a large heavy-based saucepan.
7. Add the chopped vegetables and the chili powder and mustard seeds.
8. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring. 
9. Add the limes and the vinegar and bring to the boil.
10. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered.
11. Spoon the hot pickle into hot sterilized jars and seal.
12. Leave for at least 1 week before using.
13. Store in the fridge once opened. 

 

Ham salad

Cara, Angel, Joyce, Kate, Grace, Danielle, Courtney, Gabi

This reminds me of salad we used to have for our 'tea' in the summer when I lived with my grandparents in Tynemouth, near Newcastle.

All the salad ingredients were grown by my granda in his garden or allotment.

We would have:

• cucumber, from a frame in the garden
• round lettuce, from a frame in the garden
• tomatoes, from the greenhouse
• cress, from the windowsill
• radishes, I'm not sure where they grew
• eggs, sliced with an egg cutter (you never see egg cutters anymore)
• ham, from the butcher
• boiled new potatoes, tossed in mint (from the garden)

All with a dollop of salad cream, since salad dressing hadn't been invented in the 70s.

Gina, Peggy and Andrea

Ham salad ingredients

For Salad Club we used the following ingredients:

• Ham, from the deli counter in Tesco
• Hard boiled eggs, cut in half with a knife
• Salad leaves, from a packet
• Coleslaw (was going to be homemade but in the end was from Tesco)
• Cherry tomatoes, from Tesco
• Cucumber, from Tesco
• Mashed potato salad, made by Joyce*
• Salad dressing, made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, grain mustard and a pinch of sugar)
• Paula's plum chutney 

* Mashed potato salad

I have to admit to having reservations about mashed potato salad, but this old Higgins family recipe is absolutely delicious.

1. Make mashed potatoes as you normally would, by adding butter, milk, salt and pepper to hot cooked potatoes, then mashing till smooth. 
2. When the potatoes are cool, add finely chopped white or red onion, salt, pepper and malt vinegar to taste. In our case, you add a lot of malt vinegar. I know it sounds weird but think about it - you add malt vinegar to chips.  
3. Serve cold.  

 

Ham salad

The photo of the ingredients looks quite sad, so I made it small.

Rhubarb and tomato chutney

Last week I had intended to make two varieties of chutney and chilli jam, but having weighed out my fruit I don't have nearly enough tomatoes to make all three. I refuse to buy overpriced fruit and veg from the supermarket for chutney, and since it was Good Friday neither the market nor the greengrocer's were open. I decided to make an experimental rhubarb and tomato chutney instead.

For the chilli jam I need 10 red chillies. I bought £1 worth from the market, giving me about four times the amount I need. I'm going to add more than usual to the chilli jam to give it more of a kick, but also add some to the chutney. 

First, though, I needed to sterilize my jars. This is the boring bit of chutney making, especially when you don't have a dishwasher. I left them in very hot soapy water for about 20 minutes then rinsed them in very hot water. After that, they go into the oven, which has been heated to 150 degrees C. As I was going out in the afternoon, I switched the oven off and left them to dry for a couple of hours. 

Rhubarb and tomato chutney ingredients

• 700g rhubarb
• 2 very large onions (about 950g-1kg)
• 1335g very ripe tomatoes
• 500g sultanas
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed 
• 5 red chillies, finely chopped and seeds removed.
• 300ml malt vinegar
• 300g soft brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons curry powder*
• 1/2 tablespoon mustard powder

  How to make rhubarb and tomato chutney

1. First skin the tomatoes. To do this, place 3 or 4 in a large Pyrex bowl. 

• Pour over boiling water from the kettle to cover. 
• Leave to stand for about 5 minutes.
• Remove 1 tomato with a slotted spoon and peel - the skin should come off easily if the tomatoes are ripe. Don't try and crowd too many tomatoes into the bowl at once or the skins won't slip off easily.

2. Chop the onions roughly.3. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large preserving pan and add the onions.
4. Fry for a few minutes, then add the crushed garlic cloves and curry powder.
5. Roughly chop the tomatoes and add to the pan.
6. Add the remaining ingredients.
7. Stir, without boiling, till the sugar dissolves.
8. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally until the chutney thickens - about 1.5-2 hours - a wooden spoon scraped across the bottom on the pan should part the chutney.
9. Leave to cool slightly then pot into warm jars. 
10. Leave to mature for at least 2 months before eating.  

*For the curry powder, I used a Madhur Jaffrey recipe, which I found here: 
http://www.loulies.com/curry_powder/

Plum chutney

Polish fruit picker (Stasio)

Yesterday Barnaby and Stasio helped Ollie harvest the cherry plums from our tree and so today is chutney making day. This year we have a bumper crop, so I'm quadrupling the recipe. I'm also mixing and matching several recipes as I want to include plums, cooking apples, Spanish onions and raisins. This means that, according to one recipe, I have accidentally added double the amount of sugar I need, although, according to another recipe, I should be OK. I am also slightly dubious about the amount of vinegar I am supposed to use, so have reduced this. I may end up with burnt, sour toffee. Ollie asked what I'd do if it turned out wrong. My response was that Kerry will eat it anyway.

Hubble bubble

Plum chutney ingredients

• 4kg plums, de-stoned
• 1.4 kg cooking apples
• 1.1kg Spanish onions
• 1.4kg raisins
• 1.4kg soft brown sugar
• 1.25 litres cider vinegar

Chutney spice mix ingredients

2 cinnamon sticks
6 dried red chillies

6 teaspoons allspice berries

2 teaspoons cloves

6 teaspoons coriander seeds

4 teaspoons black peppercorns

How to make plum chutney

1. As you de-stone the plums, chop them roughly.
   This is an extremely tedious job that takes forever. I have tried leaving the stones in and removing after the chutney is cooked, but, on balance, I think de-stoning before cooking is quicker. At least you can do this while you sit in front of the TV.
2. Put the stoned plums in a very large preserving pan. 
3. Peel, core and chop the apples and add to the pan. Don't worry if they go brown before they get in the pan as everything will turn to a brown mush as it cooks anyway.
4. Peel and roughly chop the onions and add to the pan.
5. Add the dried chilies and cinnamon sticks to the pan.
6. Place the rest of the spices in a piece of muslin and tie together. Add this to the pan.
7. Bring everything to the boil, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning.
8. Reduce to a gentle simmer, and cook till thick, stirring regularly to prevent burning. 
9. BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN STIRRING! The chutney will be very hot and have a tendency to bubble. It’s actually a bit like stirring a cauldron. I usually reduce the temperature right down before giving it a stir to avoid getting splashed with the boiling goo.
10. Once the chutney is thick, leave it to cool and pot into sterilized jars while still warm, remembering to fish out the cinnamon sticks and dried chilies.
    Sterilizing jars is easy - if you have a dishwasher then just put them through a cycle and leave in the dishwasher till dry. If you don't, like me, just wash in very hot soapy water, rinse in hot water and then place upside down in a cold oven. Switch it on and heat to 100 degrees, then switch off. Leave the jars in the oven till you are ready to use them. Wash lids in hot soapy water, rinse, and leave on a rack to dry.

Toil and trouble

The chutney should take about 3 or 4 hours to reach the right consistency. However, I started cooking mine at about 1pm today and it is still not ready at 6.30pm. In fact, I don't think it has reduced at all in the last hour. Maybe it was a mistake to add that extra 250ml vinegar halfway through. I think I need to increase the temperature or I will be up all night. 



I still have 2 large bowls of stoned fruit to use up and another bowl yet to be stoned. I think the jam I intend to make will have to wait for tomorrow night. I found a recipe which involves sprinkling the sugar over the plums and leaving overnight. I have no idea what this is supposed to do but think I will give it a go.

Potting chutney is a sticky business that takes longer than you think. Invariably some dribbles down the site of the jars which need wiping clean before labelling and storing. Leave the chutney for at least a month, longer if possible, before eating. I actually don't give out unmature chutney anymore as some people don't wait till its ready before they eat it (you know who you are).

Rhubarb chutney

I went up North for the first half of the Jubilee weekend to see my family, and came back with a big bag of rhubarb someone from my mum’s school gives her every week. She already has a freezer full of the stuff and is getting pretty sick of it so asked if I had any ideas of what to use it for. I took some off her hands to make into chutney.

Rhubarb

Having trawled recipe sites for about an hour I’ve decided to come up with my own version of rhubarb chutney.

I’ve never made rhubarb chutney before but imagine it will be just to my taste, since I love the tartness of this fruit in a crumble. Some pieces look beautiful – like sweeties – but stripping off the vivid pinky-red string leaves most of them looking pale green and uninteresting. An hour or so in the chutney pan does even more damage – the result is a brown mush that looks completely unappetising. Despite this I have great hopes for this chutney, but will have to wait at least a month to find out if I’m right.

Rhubarb chutney

Rhubarb chutney ingredients

• 1.15kg rhubarb
• 500g raisins
• 3 medium onions
• 500ml cider vinegar
• 450g soft brown sugar (I ran out and used about 75g demerara sugar with the rest soft brown
• This much ginger (butter for comparison)

Ginger, about the length of a packet of butter

OK, if you insist, it was about 25g

• 5 cloves
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns

How to make rhubarb chutney

  

1. Chop the rhubarb into short pieces 

 

2. Roughly chop the onions

3. Put everything in a very large pan - preferably a preserving pan
4. Bring to the boil then simmer for about 3 hours, till the chutney is thick
5. Turn off the heat and allow the chutney to cool slightly
5. Pot into sterilized jars while still warm