It’s that time of year isn’t it? Either you have your own glut of apples, courgettes, marrows, pears, tomatoes, chillis etc. Or someone else has a glut and wants to offload some of it onto you!
My latest glut – having dealt with blackberries, apples, tomatoes, chillis…….. is marrow. I didn’t grow any but the courgettes manifested themselves as marrows overnight. TBH there are only so many courgettes one can eat!
So here’s a recipe to use up a marrow or two. All proportions are approximate, depending on what you have to hand. Chutney is very forgiving!
The proportions below made six jars.
I medium sized marrow (about 35cm long) peeled, de-seeded and chopped into small dice
2 large onions, chopped
1 piece of fresh ginger about 5cm long, grated – add more if you love ginger
6 cloves of garlic, grated
500g chopped windfall apples – I used unpeeled Coxes Orange Pippin – just take the cores out
One sweet potato – peeled and diced
One whole fresh chilli about 10cm long including pips (mine were hot, so use your judgement depending how much chilli you like) and remove the seeds if you don’t like it too hot (then wash your hands, dont touch your eyes or go to the loo till doing that otherwise there will be dire and painful consequences)
2 tbs nigella seeds
2 tbs cumin seed
3 tbs turmeric powder
2 tbs sea salt (less if you prefer)
150g golden demerara sugar
750ml apple cider vinegar
1 whole lemon, de-rinded and chopped
Put everything in a preserving pan or large saucepan and stir it round to incorporate all the ingredients.
Place on the hob, bring slowly to the boil stirring whilst you wait.
When it’s bubbling away merrily, keep taking a look every five minutes and stir carefully to make sure it isn’t sticking to the bottom.
After 10 minutes, turn the heat down till it gently burbles away for another 30 minutes.
By then the liquid will have reduced and the mixture will be thicker.
Carefully check that the vegetables are cooked through and if they are not, cook for another 10 minutes.
The consistency you are seeking is an unctuous rolling mixture where the liquid has reduced to coat the vegetables.
If it is still runny, simply keep cooking it till more of the liquid evaporates.
Sterilise your jars either by putting a small amount of water in each jar and microwave on medium for 3 minutes. Or pour some vodka into the first jar, swirl it round then transfer to the next jar and so on. At the end, drink the vodka!
When your chutney has cooled, transfer it to the jars and leave to cool. Then top with greaseproof circles (not too soon or condensation will form – so be patient!). When completely cold, lid and label.
Chutney is very easy to make and doesn’t really need you to be precise about ‘setting times’ as you would with jam. My only tip is to take your time to reduce the liquid content, be adventurous with the ingredients.
and enjoy experimenting.
You can find lots of preserving ideas on my website, so take a look either use the search bar on the landing page or follow this link.
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